Robert B. Parker’s Old Black Magic, by Ace Atkins

 

 

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This week I was feeling like a fun mystery story, and Robert B. Parker’s Old Black Magic fit the bill perfectly! The writer Ace Atkins has taken over writing the series, and has breathed new life into it. This book tells a fictionalized story of the robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner art museum. This is one of the most famous art robberies, and the unsolved case is still a big mystery. In this fictionalized world,  Spenser of course, can help to find the lost art and solve the 20 year old mystery. Nobody knows the thugs and mobsters of Boston the way Spenser does, so it’s fun to see him take on a mystery that resonates with the real world!

From Amazon:
“The heist was legendary, still talked about twenty years after the priceless paintings disappeared from one of Boston’s premier art museums. Most thought the art was lost forever, buried deep, sold off overseas, or, worse, destroyed as incriminating evidence. But when paint chips from the most valuable piece stolen, Gentlemen in Black by a Spanish master, arrives at the desk of a Boston journalist, the museum finds hope and enlists Spenser’s help.

Soon the cold art case thrusts Spenser into the shady world of black market art dealers, aged Mafia bosses, and old vendettas. A five-million-dollar-reward by the museum’s top benefactor, an aged, unlikable Boston socialite, sets Spenser and pals Vinnie Morris and Hawk onto a trail of hidden secrets, jailhouse confessions, and decades-old murders.

Set against the high-society art scene and the low-life back alleys of Boston, this is classic Spenser doing what he does best.”