It takes a lot of bad to earn only two stars when a book includes so many things that I like. Museums, academia, libraries, classical art, the Renaissance, likable characters in a want-to-see setting? This book has it all.

But when you consistently have *all* of your likable characters avoid simple, safe and non-risky alternatives in favor of deadly, insanely stupid and over-the-top ones, and you repeat this over and over and over and over again throughout the entire course of a book, you get two stars. It was so bad that I was practically laughing at the decision-making processes by the end of it. I mean, really. Since pretty much everyone had a death wish, they should have probably just done a collective swan dive off the top of the Ponte Vecchio and been done with it. ( )

Absolutely riveting. I was enthralled all the way through. Lorenzo Carcaterra has become one of my favorite authors. He has a strong drive for criminal drama. I am looking forward to his next novel. ( )

nice quick read, a little predictable..but enjoyable! ( )

I thought it might be interesting to read a book about art crime in Florence while reading a bio of Lorenzo de Medici. Excellent idea, but this novel was a bad one to choose. It's a Swiss cheese of a book, full of plot holes and jumps in narrative, replete with characters straight from central casting (the cardboard variety, who can only speak in cliches...) If this were a movie, it wouldn't even make it to B movie cult status.

The gist of the plot is that Kate, a young woman in her 20s, has a Harry Potter-esque mission -- to take up from her murdered parents in fighting the forces of evil. In this case, the force of evil is a nasty and corrupt guy, once known as David and now simply "the Raven". The story, however, is so implausible, that I started laughing, rather than feeling tension, about halfway through. The characters are caricatures, and the only reason this gets two stars rather than 1/2 star is the fact that some of the descriptions of Florence are interesting. And even then I'm feeling generous; not only is the implausibility factor high, but the errors are silly and numerous. Someone is referred to as a "navy sailor" (are there many army sailors? OK, yes, Marines, but they are called Marines...); silly typos such as "undo influence" rather than "undue influence" litter the pages. Careless plotting/characterization/writing/editing...

There are plenty of other interesting art world mysteries/thrillers out there. Check out some early works by Peter Watson (Landscape of Lies) or Ian Pears's books instead. ( )