The Mystery of the Lost Cézanne: A Verlaque and Bonnet Mystery

Longworth’s charming, if talky, fifth Verlaque and Bonnet mystery (after 2014’s Murder on the Île Sordou) looks at the art world. The book alternates between the now troubled relationship between Antoine Verlaque, the chief magistrate of Aix-en-Provence, France, and his girlfriend, law professor Marine Bonnet, and flashbacks to the 19th-century life of artist Paul Cézanne, who resided for years in Aix. The investigation starts with the violent death of a retired postal worker and discovery in his apartment of a putative Cézanne painting, unknown to the art world, which leads to an American art history professor with secrets of her own. Cézanne’s presence infuses the whole story, and the relationship between the painter and a sympathetic young bakery clerk is the highlight, whereas the main story is marred by long passages on art history, lengthy descriptions of the city, and the self-absorption of some of the main characters. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown. (Sept.)