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Loading... The Luzern Photograph: A noir thrillerby William Bayer
None No current Talk conversations about this book.  MaraBlaise | Jul 23, 2022 |  no reviews | add a review
In this fascinating psychological neo-noir mystery, a notorious late 19th-century photograph provides the key to a contemporary murder. In 1882, the young Lou Andreas-Salome, writer, psychoanalyst and femme fatale, appears with Friedrich Nietzche and another man in a bizarre photograph taken in Luzern, Switzerland. Over thirty years later, an intense art student in Freud's Vienna presents Lou Salome with his own drawing based on the infamous photograph. In the present day, Tess Berenson, a brilliant performance artist, moves into an art deco loft in downtown Oakland, California. Her new apartment, she learns, was vacated in a hurry by a professional dominatrix who used the name Chantal Desforges. Tess's curiosity about Chantal intensifies when her body is discovered in the trunk of a stolen car at Oakland airport. Embarking on an obsessive investigation into the murder, Tess discovers a link to the original Luzern photograph and the 1913 drawing - but as she gets closer to the shocking truth, Tess finds that she too is in jeopardy. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (2.17)
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Wikipedia in English (1)
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Several years before this is Lou Andreas-Salome approached by a young painter that's stalking her and he gives her a painting he has painted of a famous photograph of her with Friedrich Nietzsche and Paul Rée.
I must confess that I found the story that takes place in the past more interesting than the present story in this book. I was not sure what to think about this book until I realized who the young painter was and I was curious to what kind of impact the painting would have to the story. But, despite starting off interesting did I find the story didn't turn out quite as interesting as I hoped it would. The ending, the resolution of the murder was, to be honest, a bit of a letdown. It felt so simple the reason Chantel was killed and the revealing of the murderer was never really a very big surprise. Also, I had some problem with the first-person narrative, it worked with the past story, but I never really found that it worked that well with Tess.
But still, it was mostly good the book. I found, for instance, Lou Andreas-Salome a very interesting characters and her past with Friedrich Nietzsche and Paul Rée and, later on, her study under Freud was interesting to read about and I really want to read a book about Lou Andreas-Salome. Also, despite the first-person narrative was Tess story in the present not that bad. She became a bit obsessed with Chantel and her way of life and, in the end, that helped solve Chantel's murder. So, despite my hope for a more direct link with the past when it came to the murder was it interesting to know at the end where the painting was.
Here is the picture her with Friedrich Nietzsche and Paul Rée.
Thanks to Severn House and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! (