O' Artful Death

Sweeney, an art historian who specializes in death, accepts the invitation of her best friend Toby to spend the holidays with his family in Vermont. At the same time, she has become fascinated with an unusual gravestone depicting a beautiful young woman lying in a boat, that happens to be in a nearby Vermont cemetery. The setting is an art colony loosely based on Cornish NH, with its talented and quirky inhabitants who have loads of secrets from the past and present. Taylor does a good job of portraying rural small town life and its contrast with the "colonists" from away. Nothing like a couple of murders to bring out the best and worst of folks. There were plenty of red herrings and twists, along with a fair amount of art history, to show more keep this reader interested. show less

O’ARTFUL DEATH is written by Sarah Stewart Taylor. The title is Book #1 of Ms. Taylor’s Sweeney St George Mystery series.
Ms. Sweeney St. George is an accomplished art historian presently living and working in Boston. She has a special interest in the ‘art of death’. She becomes intrigued by several photographs of a New England cemetery given to her by friend, Tony DiMarco. The very beautiful, intriguing, sculptured headstone of one ‘Mary Elizabeth Denholm —- January 3, 1872 to August 28, 1890’ is intriguing because, though late Victorian, it had unusual ‘death images’ inconsistent with the period and a very puzzling poem etched into the sculpture.
Toby is spending the Christmas holidays with relatives in Byzantium, show more Vermont, the very location of the cemetery and a former art colony, and invites Sweeney to come with him. Sweeney’s curiosity is so intense, she is eager to visit the cemetery and research the art colony and the town itself, Byzantium.
The plot is a bit complicated with many references to art history, particularly the Pre-Raphaelites and their artistic movement.
There are also many references to the Arthurian period and the very famous, lyrical poem “The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson that was a cornerstone of Arthurian legend. (Also, my very own personal favorite poem. I loved all the excerpts.)
The story is further complicated by the murder that occurs the very afternoon that Toby and Sweeney arrive.
I thought this was a wonderful mystery; a wonderful first introduction to Sweeney St. George.
The locations were excellent; the art history references were very interesting and I felt that I learned a thing or two about a previously unknown subject. The characters were interesting and very plausible. The ending was a bit ‘hurried’, but it was a surprise (to me) and many puzzles were solved.
I am looking forward to Book #2 in the series. Meanwhile I am reading “The Lady of Shalott”. show less

First book in the Sweeney St. George series. Sweeney, an art historian, is invited to the country home of a friend, Toby. The home is in a former art colony. Because she is pursuing information about a grave stone of a person who had lived in the colony area, Sweeney says yes.

The mystery, to Sweeney, is who made the grave stone. It is not at all like others of the period and seems to have a story of its own. When she finds the young woman to have died mysteriously, she needs to know more.

But before she knows it, there are other mysteries to solve. Who has been burglarizing homes in the neighborhood. What relationship different residents have to each other and to the young woman from long ago. She hunts in libraries and asks questions of show more those who might know.

But then one of the residents is murdered. Sweeney suspects she knew something that she was about to tell Sweeney.

Sweeney also meets an odd Englishman, Ian Ball, who behaves mysteriously. Does he have any connection to the events happening around here?

Sweeney finds a diary of a woman who knew the gravestone person, and it suggests some interesting possibilities. Also , several pages are torn out. Why?

I was bothered by some silly minor things. In the diary the writer says "...from whence". Now today many people make that mistake ("whence means 'from where') but years ago people would likely have know the correct meaning. There were other grammatical missteps that would unlikely not have been taken, in other quoted books. These things bother me only because the writers are presumed to be well-educated. I'm surprised that Taylor's many readers did not pick up on them.

The solutions to the different mysteries are on the verge of being ridiculous. I won't go into them because that would spoil the story for those still reading it, but I had many questions. Certainly nobody would have figured them out!

These books are readable and keep my interest. I hope the next readers feel the same. show less

I've read the german translation I've picked up in my local library but it didn't grab me. The plot is complex but the characters are mostly flat and hard to connect to. Especially the heroine, Sweeny, sometimes seemed a bit two-demensional. Still, it's an easy read for a rainy afternoon.

A graveyard scholar, Sweeney is fascinated by a headstone in the cemetery at the Byzantium Colony (based on Cornish NH?) which does not match her historical expectations.

In some ways reminiscent of A. S. Byatt's Possession: a Romance.

giving to sanger mystery group 1/2013