The Unknown Masterpiece

Inspector Aliette Nouvelle’s romantic relationship with Commissaire Claude Néon is faltering. This sad fact becomes a heavy distraction as she goes back and forth from France to Switzerland trying to determine who killed Martin Bettelman, a Basel art gallery security guard, found at a gay gathering spot on the banks of the Rhine. A damaged painting of a shoemaker found near the body motivates the inspector more than the fact of murder. Aliette identifies with the image of a dedicated artisan working in solitude. With love dissolving, work is all that’s left.

Aliette doesn’t know it as she starts out on the case, but her investigation is concurrent with an investigation into the murder of Justin Aebischer, a well-known Basel art restorer, in a small Swiss town outside of Basel. She sees an art fraud conspiracy at the source. But territorially minded Swiss police who ought to be allies are ineffectual and/or antagonistic to her ideas and moves.

AUTHOR

John Brooke

John Brooke became fascinated by criminality and police work listening to the courtroom stories and observations of his father, a long-serving judge. Although he lives in Montreal, John makes frequent trips to France for both pleasure and research. He earns a living as a freelance writer and translator, has also worked as a film and video editor as well as directed four films on modern dance. His poetry and short stories have been widely published, and in 1998 his story “The Finer Points of Apples” won him the Journey Prize. Brooke’s first Inspector Aliette mystery, The Voice of Aliette Nouvelle, was published in 1999, followed by All Pure Souls in 2001. He took a break from Aliette with the publication of his novel Last Days of Montreal in 2004, but returned with her in 2011 with Stifling Folds of Love.