The Gravity of Shadows

Like a brakeless jalopy that slowly tops a hill then careens out of control on its way down, Ramus's gripping second novel starts slowly, but once it picks up speed, all you can do is hang on for the ride. Down-on-his-luck art dealer Wil Sumner gets the chance of a lifetime when reclusive millionaire Andrew Stevenson asks him to appraise his rare collection of drawings for potential sale. But the job is not without its complications: Stevenson's lawyer is against the sale, and the collection contains a sorely tempting, uncatalogued Velasquez notebook, which could put Sumner on easy street. And when an attacker invades the house and demands to be handed a set of secret files, Sumner--who knew Stevenson and his seductive daughter M.K. when he was growing up on the wrong side of the Palm Beach tracks--ends up in the middle of a long list of betrayal and murder. As in his previous novel, Thief of Light, former art dealer Ramus packs the story with credible art world details; in this novel he also manages to create an unpredictable plot and a believable hero. Sumner is not one of those latent supermen who turns into Rambo when the chips are down. He blunders into crises without thinking, and while he may want to be the white knight in a damsel-in-distress story, he has neither the armor nor the weaponry for the job--which makes his struggle to redeem himself (and resist the temptation of that uncatalogued notebook) all the more interesting. U.K. and translation rights: Aaron Priest Agency. (May)