Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of Cezanne's Quarry by Barbara Corrado Pope. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.
Cezanne's Quarry by Barbara Corrado Pope
Non-series
Pegasus Books (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-933648-83-X (193364883X)
ISBN-13: 978-1-933648-83-5 (9781933648835)
Publication Date: July 2008
List Price: $25.00
Review: Barbara Corrado Pope’s first novel, Cezanne’s Quarry, is an awe-inspiring murder mystery that tiptoes through a most troublesome moment in time for the small municipality of Aix-en-Provence, France, home to celebrated artist Paul Cezanne.
It is mid-August, 1885. A beautiful woman is found murdered at the old quarry. At first unknown, she is later identified as Solange Vernet by an inexperienced magistrate, Bernard Martin. Martin had met her once when she had invited him to hear lectures given by her paramour, English scholar Charles Westbury. Westbury renounced the Biblical version of God’s creation of the world in seven days by expounding on and expanding Darwin’s theory of evolution, stating that there is “no vestige of a beginning, nor is there a prospect for an end.” Although Martin had never attended the lectures, he couldn’t forget her. One who did attend was local artist Paul Cezanne. Cezanne had immediately fallen in love with her, inciting in Westbury a jealousy he hadn't known possible. But Solange harbored a secret that she could never tell Cezanne and thus rebuked his love for her. The only clue found at the murder site was a note to Solange saying, “Meet me at the old quarry. C.” Who was the "C" of the note? Charles? Cezanne? And was this a crime of passion, or something even more sinister? Martin's task is indeed a daunting one.
Cezanne's Quarry is an amazing, multi-faceted novel. There is the murder mystery with its political overtones but there are also the elements of science and religion and at times philosophy. At one point Cezanne says one should, "Strive to create something new, yet as old as the world itself. Take time to think it through ... and see it." Atmospheric with finely crafted period details, strong character development, and a mesmerizing plot come together to make Cezanne's Quarry one of the best books of the year.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Cezanne's Quarry and to Opus Communications for providing a copy of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
If you are interested in purchasing Cezanne's Quarry from Amazon.com, please click the button to the right.
Synopsis (from the publisher): August 1885. Aix-en-Provence. The body of a beautiful woman lies on the floor of a sun-baked quarry, a fragment of painted canvas shivering on a thorny branch nearby. Could Paul Cézanne be Solange Vernet’s killer?
The novice investigating magistrate Bernard Martin has only two weeks to prove that her murderer is either the artist, who is obsessively in love with Vernet, or her long-time paramour, Charles Westerbury, an English geologist with a shady past. To make the case against Cézanne or the Darwinian scientist, Martin must confront the ghosts of his own past as he struggles to understand the motives that led to Solange Vernet’s violent end.
Was her fatal strangulation merely a crime of passion? Or did she die because she dared to step outside the traditional bounds of womanhood?
The early paintings of Paul Cézanne offer crucial clues to solving the crime.
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