{"id":7157,"date":"2026-07-28T08:03:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T15:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=7157"},"modified":"2026-07-28T08:03:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T15:03:22","slug":"jon-st-denis-killer-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/jon-st-denis-killer-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon St. Denis: Killer Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This is a fun excursion into the world of AI art theft (quite relevant at the moment) as well as a cozyish look into the world of academia, complete, of course, with a few murders.\u00a0 This is a book I\u2019d call \u201ccozy adjacent\u201d but it has many, many cozy elements: the main characters, Vika and Sam, are refugees from a fast paced life in New York City and are taking up new jobs as professors at a small California college.\u00a0 Their new jobs are a world away from Vika\u2019s as a curator at MOMA, and Sam\u2019s as a crime reporter for The New York Times<\/em>. Vika will be a professor of art, Sam a prof of journalism, giving both (they hope) time to work on, respectively, her painting and his writing.<\/p>\n

The college itself seems very cozy with a nice array of back biting and not so back biting academics that form their new community, which comes complete with a mid century mod rental house.\u00a0 Things begin with a bang as Vika goes in early to her new job, intending to get a look at the art exhibit put up by the head of the art department, instead finding him dead in a corner of the darkened gallery.\u00a0 The exhibit, a look at AI art, contains one of her own paintings that has been pirated.\u00a0 She\u2019s an instant suspect and told not to leave town anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Sam and Vika decide that as the police in the small town aren\u2019t too engaged, or seemingly competent, they\u2019ll investigate on their own, focusing on the AI aspect of the puzzle. Much the way books were pirated by AI (and the pirates are now being forced to pay out), AI steals and slightly alters images, not only degrading the professional reputation of the artists but straight up stealing their work.\u00a0 I appreciated a book using this as a theme though is gets bogged down a bit in other parts of the story.<\/p>\n

As the investigation expands \u2013 and Vika and Sam are repeatedly told (like all amateur sleuths across time) to back off \u2013 we as readers encounter more and more of their community, er, suspects.\u00a0 The mystery part of this novel is quite good, though it veers into big money, fraud and ambition, along with the AI scam.\u00a0 It was a bit of a tonal disconnect from the cozy set up but it is well done, and I enjoyed the main characters, who have enough specificity to be memorable and enough general nice-ness to anchor a series.\u00a0 This was a well paced, well told story.\u00a0 — Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a fun excursion into the world of AI art theft (quite relevant at the moment) as well as a cozyish look into the world of academia, complete, of course, with a few murders.\u00a0 This is a book I\u2019d call \u201ccozy adjacent\u201d but it has many, many cozy elements: the main characters, Vika and … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2423,2566,2431,943,2564,2565,1276],"class_list":["post-7157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-academia","tag-ai-art","tag-cozy-adjacent","tag-crooked-lane-books","tag-jon-st-denis","tag-killer-art","tag-robin-agnew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7157"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7169,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7157\/revisions\/7169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}