Georgia O’Keeffe #2
I truly enjoyed the first novel in this series, Light on Bone, despite initial reservations about Georgia O’Keeffe as a detective. Lasky ably uses O’Keeffe’s artistic skillset to solve the crimes presented to her, and I am always in favor of a sleuth using an actual skill they already possess. Set in and around Taos, New Mexico, Georgia in this instalment is staying at the home of Mabel Dodge Luhan, an art patroness who maintained quite a salon. Georgia is in Taos for the funeral of D.H. Lawrence, whose body was disinterred by his wife five years after his death, cremated, and brought to Taos for interment on the grounds of a ranch Mabel had gifted to the couple (in return, Mabel received the original manuscript of Sons and Lovers).
Lasky has fictionalized a possible O’Keeffe role in the chapel where Lawrence was to be interred: she created the stained-glass windows. (If only!) It’s perfectly believable, however, and it puts Georgia where she needs to be when the girlfriend of the glass artist creating the windows is found murdered in the chapel the day before the interment. Georgia is devastated, and when the young artist, Matteo, is quickly arrested, she’s so sure she’s innocent she gets to work trying to prove it.
Georgia was married to Alfred Stieglitz at the time of this novel (1935) but had fled to New Mexico when he began to have affairs. In this series, she’s having her own affair with a sheriff, who in this novel is hot on the trail of Bugsy Seigel and not as available to Georgia as she would have preferred. She’s instead working with a genius 15-year-old who does much of the forensic work at the sheriff’s department in town as the Sherriff and his deputy are often drunk, sleeping off the effects in jail cells. The 15-year-old, Jessie Yazzie, appears to be an expert on fingerprints, blood spatter, and crime scene investigation. It’s Jessie who accompanies Georgia to the crime scene to begin the investigation.
Georgia, though trying to prove Matteo’s innocence, nevertheless is a guest at Mabel’s home, and she is forced to attend cocktail hours with Mabel’s guests, who include, in this novel, Wallis Simpson, pre-abdication. The SIS (Special Intelligence Service) are sure there are some Nazi operators even in the American desert, and Wallis seems connected to them, so while she’s being arrogant and selfish at cocktail hour, she’s also being watched.
The cases of Matteo, Wallis and the Nazis, and Bugsy Siegel are all connected. It’s completely unclear how until toward the end of the novel, but it does come together beautifully. While Georgia and her lover seem to be operating on separate investigations, the things they do share with each other begin to add up. The true genius of this book, in my opinion, is using the way Georgia O’Keeffe’s brain works – the way she sees patterns and forms – and using that skill to help her solve the crime. Lasky also almost makes the reader feel that if we were to look at the moon or a flower in just the right way, we too, could view the world as O’Keeffe did. Luckily, we all have her paintings to help us out. This is a charming and unexpected series. — Robin Agnew