A Long Time Coming

This engrossing mystery from Edgar-winner Elkins (the Gideon Oliver series) takes Val Caruso from New York, where he’s a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to Milan, where his friend Esther Lindauer, the director of the Institute for the Recovery of Stolen Art, wants him to negotiate the return of two Renoir paintings looted by members of a fascist gang in 1944 from the home of Maurizzio Bezzecca. Maurizzio’s grandson, Holocaust survivor Solomon Bezzecca, who witnessed the crime as a 16-year-old boy, wants the paintings back in part because one of them is a portrait of his grandfather. Though Val believes the cause futile because Solomon has already lost his case in court, he vows to try. Once in Milan, Val approaches the Renoirs’ current owner, an art supplier who bought them at a flea market in Hungary for practically nothing, but things quickly fall apart, and the paintings are stolen again. Filled with art lore and plenty of Milan local color, this standalone will keep readers turning the pages. (Aug.)