cover image Goodbye Again

Goodbye Again

Joseph Hone. Lilliput (Dufour, dist.), $19.95 trade paper (272p) ISBN 978-1-84351-189-2

At the start of this irritatingly mopey thriller from British author Hone (The Private Sector), painter Ben Contini, whose talents have been blocked since his mistress's suicide, is stunned when Elsa Bergen, the dead woman's exact double, shows up at his mother's funeral in Dublin with hints that their fathers were clandestine associates. The discovery of a Modigliani nude concealed in his family home leads Ben to intuit decades of involvement in smuggling Nazi loot. Sure enough, neo-Nazis and art thieves chase Ben and Elsa as they amble through Europe in pursuit of the truth about the painting's history and their fathers' guilt. A study of character under pressure, this novel intermittently brings people and places to life, though mostly it moves by fits and starts through sketchy scenes and interminable chit-chat. (Oct.)