Death and Restoration

Flavia di Stefano is asked to take over as temporary head of Rome’s art theft squad when her boss is tapped for an international bureaucratic role, and one of her first headaches is the theft of a holy icon from a local monastery; this appears to be an unimportant item, but for centuries the local population has believed the icon protects them from plague and other disasters, so recovery of the thing is of great importance in terms of publicity for the squad. In the meantime, Flavia and her fiance Jonathan Argyll (now happily teaching rather than trying to make a living as an art dealer) are both concerned when a master thief turns up in Rome. Although she claims to be retired and on holiday in Italy, both wonder if she could ever show more change her thieving ways, and when injuries and deaths related to the monastery are thrown into the mix, all bets are off….This is the sixth in the seven-book series featuring Flavia and Jonathan, and it is as whimsical and entertaining as the earlier stories, with the addition of some characters we hadn’t met before and some that we had. The depictions of Rome and of Italian bureaucracy are very enjoyable, and the main characters are people one wishes one could meet in real life. I think this series should be read in sequence (beginning with “The Rafael Affair”), but that is no burden as the books are a lot of fun; recommended! show less

This was the best mystery novel I've read in a very long time. It was MUCH better than either the Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons. (I may not be an art restorer, but as far as I noticed, at least nothing in Pears' background [the Italian art world] was WRONG!)

The Art Theft Squad has received an anonymous tip that a small monastery in Rome may soon be the victim of a heist - but their only valuable painting (a Caravaggio of doubtful provenance) is currently under restoration by an art restorer of dubious reputation. Still, the police warn the monks (who are in the midst of an internal political struggle) to be careful... but soon, an elderly member of the community is found coshed in the head... and of course, an artwork is show more missing....

The team of Flavia, Italian Art Theft Squad officer, and her boyfriend, academic art historian Jonathan Argyll, works well, and all the characters - even the villains - were colorful, reasonably well-rounded, interesting characters.

But I was most impressed by the plot - a steady tension was kept up - it kept taking unexpected turns, revealing new layers of deception and new motivations for nearly everyone involved.... some things I really feared/expected would happen didn't - but what did happen all made sense.... (I hate it when, in a mystery, something is revealed, and you're just like, "What? Where did THAT come from? You didn't give me ANY clues!") show less

I have become a fan of Iain Pears after reading his Death and Restoration, a novel in the Jonathan Argyll series.

The story about a mysterious murder and theft in an obscure church in Rome has a subplot which takes the reader to the last days of Byzantium. The icon that had disappeared from the church turns out to be, possibly, the sacred hodigitria, painted by St Luke himself.

It is this subplot which is dear to my Russian heart: I grew up knowing, or, rather, believing, that one of the most sacred of Byzantine icons, the Vladimir Mother of God was brought to Russia by the daughter of the last Emperor when she married the Grand Prince of Moscow. Legend holds that it is as old as Christianity itself and was painted in a live sitting from show more Mary, mother of Jesus. When Constantinople fell to the Turk in 1453, a medieval Russian book says, the Holy Spirit rose from the fallen city and descended on Moscow blessing the emerging centre of Eastern Church as the Third Rome.

It was amusing for me to read a different version based on the same historical episode. The holiest icon is smuggled through Turkish naval blockade not to Russia, but to Rome...

Iain Pears' novels are in between women's and men's literature - light, romantic, but full of well-grounded factual material - the author is an authority in the history of art. There is also, unlike Dan Brown's books, no hidden agenda. Pears is refreshing and enlightening, pure pleasure to read. show less

I’d only come across Pears once before – in ‘Dreams of Scipio’ – which I thought was well written but a bit heavy going at times. So this little gem took me by surprise. I grabbed it to read on a plane – and I finished it as I ran between connecting flights (literally)!

It is not only a good mystery, but it also is a very intelligent one. The author knows his setting, his place and his history - something one so rarely finds. And he writes in an engaging and entertaining style. The characters are delightful and believable and I was caught up in the intrigue of all the subplots that they create. There are many questions to be answered, but the whole thing is tied up very well at the end of the book.

It seems that this is one show more in a series of art history mysteries Pears has written – and I’ll definitely be tracking down the others! show less

Sixth (and second to last) in the Jonathan Argyll “art history” mysteries. Big changes are afoot at the Art Theft Squad and Flavia needs to choose whether to join her boss Bottando on an international task force or to take over the day-to-day running of the Art Theft Squad. She’s a hands-on type of person and doesn’t relish sitting behind a desk, though the more regular hours would make it possible to spend more time with Jonathan. The Squad gets a tip that there is to be a theft at a local Abbey, but that particular institution has nothing of real value so they are puzzled as to what a thief would want. But when a rather notorious thief named Mary Verney is spotted entering Rome, Flavia assigns her to be watched closely. But show more that doesn’t stop a small icon at the abbey from being stolen right out from under their noses—and the head of the abbey is clonked on the head and severely injured as well. Is the loud-mouthed American restorer working on another picture in the abbey to blame? Or did Mary Verney slip out of their surveillance? Or is an unknown factor involved? I really enjoy this series—I always learn a bit about the art world, and enjoy both Jonathan and Flavia and their relationship and the supporting cast, too. The author also often will manage to surprise me a bit and this book was no exception. One more left in the series, then that’s it! Bummer! show less

A monk is knocked unconscious and an icon stolen, but why the icon when there was a Caravaggio in the same church?

Although it's no. 6 out of 7, this was the first Jonathan Argyll book I read back in pre-LT (BLT?) days. Re-reading it now when I've read the earlier books makes it funnier and of course the solution has extra resonance now in view of what happened earlier this month (edited after a re-read in July 2020).

6ème épisode des aventures de Jonathan Argyll et Flavia di Stefano...

Pears nous ballade dans Rome au gré des enquêtes sur les vols d'oeuvre d'art, et on aime ça...