More than paint is hot in this ambitious and showbizzy return (after 2001's The John Lennon Affair) of divorced Hollywood amateur sleuths, long-running columnist Neil Gulliver and popular actress Stevie Marriner. When underworld boss and benefactor Aaron Lodger gives Stevie a collection of 11 Andy Warhol silk screens, she and Neil find themselves in ever-darker territory as they try to learn the value of this treasure. Neil's sources—gallery entrepreneur Kip Lingle, retired crime reporter Augie Fowler and other experts—turn up nothing. A call from someone saying he is Theodore Rosenstock, an art dealer, brings an impressive offer that shoots even higher as Neil hesitates, sensing something is not right. Augie enlists the shadowy Ari and Zev, lawyers and self-styled righters of wrongs. In pursuit of identification and discovery they expose Neil and Stevie to grave danger, tangling them with an avaricious underground network of collectors willing to kill for illegally gotten artwork and confronting them with items confiscated by the Nazis from Jewish collectors. Identities are constantly in question, since most of the characters have dual personas and others have private as well as public faces, like the frightening Clegg, a killer-for-hire dispatched to terminate anyone who gets in his boss's way. There's almost too much going on here, making the plot difficult to follow at times, but Levinson, a veteran art columnist and critic, reveals plenty of substance under the glitz. Current individual romantic pursuits aside, Neil and Stevie are still very emotionally connected, which adds to the heat and guarantees them another appearance. Advertising in mystery publications. (Aug. 29)
