The Last Judgment
An Art History Mystery

While many readers are familiar with Iain Pears novels such as An Instance of the Fingerpost, along with Dream of Scipio, Pears began his career by writing the Jonathan Argyll mystery series about the Italian Art Squad. Seven books in total having to deal, lightly and nicely, with art thefts. I love......more

Before Iain Pears became famous for writing such novels as An Instance of the Fingerpost, he wrote and published an Art History Mystery series of which this is the 4th installment. Pears' degree is in Art History and I believe he has also published non fiction in the genre. In any case, I stumbled o......more

This is the first Iain Pears book that I've read, and the fourth in the Art History Mystery Series (Jonathan Argyll and Flavia di Stefano). Here's why I liked it: * This series is in the same vein as Gregory McDonald's Fletch series or Elizabeth Peters' Vicky Bliss/Sir John Smythe Street of the Five M......more

Art dealer Jonathon Argyll finds himself and his girlfriend Italian art police inspector, Flavia, unwittingly enmeshed in murder, torture and intrigue in a plot to bury the past. Jonathon agrees to bring a 16th century minor art work with him from Paris to Rome for a fellow art dealer. The delivery......more

Uneven plot. Silly dialog. When you read a murder mystery you want to believe that the scenes in the book are plausible. That way you do not get distracted from the flow of the book because your brain says “can't this author see how silly that sounds?” or “what hotel clerk would tell a stranger in w......more