Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

There’s something about certain paintings. It might be the lighting, or the emotions a painting evokes, or something else. But paintings can have a mystique that’s quite apart from their monetary value. And if a painting has that sort of appeal and is considered valuable, that adds more to the possible legends around it (the Mona Lisa, for instance). Paintings like that can add much to a crime novel. They can serve as a motive for crime, a layer of character, or a plot point, among other things.

For example, Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs features famous painter Amyas Crale, who was murdered by poison sixteen years before the events in the novel. He was in the process of doing a painting of Elsa Greer, with whom he was having a not-really-hidden affair. When he died, his wife Caroline was of course the main suspect. In fact, she was arrested, tried, and convicted in the matter, and died in prison a year later. The Crales’ daughter Carla has always believed her mother was innocent, though, and wants Poirot to clear her name. In the process, Poirot meets the five people who were present at the time of the murder and gets accounts from each of them about the killing. Those accounts give Poirot the clues he needs to find out who the real murderer was. In the process of investigating, Poirot gets a chance to see the painting of Elsa, and it’s not hard to see that it has a real impact on him and on its current owner. I see you, fans of After the Funeral.

In Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time, Inspector Alan Grant is recuperating from a broken leg he suffered during an investigation. While he’s laid up, a friend of his brings him pictures of some historical figures with the idea that he can occupy himself solving a mystery from the past. One of the pictures, a portrait of King Richard III, particularly haunts Grant. He begins to believe that the king could not have been responsible for the disappearance and presumed murders of King Edward V and Richard, Duke of York. If that’s the case, though, then what is the truth about the Princes in the Tower? Who murdered them and why? Grant begins to look more deeply into the mystery, and he works out another solution to the case.

The focus of Patricia Hghsmith’s Ripley Under Ground is the artwork of Philip Derwatt, a relative unknown who died a few years earlier. Tom Ripley, Highsmith’s protagonist, has worked with a small group of friends to convince London’s Buckmaster Gallery to carry Derwatt’s work. One of the gang paints new ‘Derwatts,’ one does the publicity, and one writes articles to keep Derwatt’s name in the public’s mind. It’s a successful enterprise, if not legal. All goes well until an American tourist and Derwatt enthusiast named Thomas Murchison visits London. His goal is to see a Derwatt show that’s going on at the gallery. That’s when he notices some subtle but real differences between Derwatt work he knows, and one particular painting he sees at the gallery. The gang gets together and decides that the best thing to do is have Ripley go to London as Derwatt and claim the painting as his own work. Unfortunately for Ripley, Murchison is not entirely convinced, and he decides he’s going to go to the authorities. Now, Ripely will have to come up with another plan to make sure that his ‘business enterprise’ is kept safe…

In Aaron Elkins’ Loot, we meet Benjamin ‘Ben’ Revere, a Boston-based art expert and art historian. One day, Revere gets a call from his friend Simeon Pawlovski, who owns a pawn shop. It seems that Pawlovski has gotten a painting that may be valuable, and he wants Revere to authenticate it. When Revere sees the painting, he’s shocked to find that the painting may actually be a priceless Velázquez that was ‘taken for safekeeping’ by the Nazis during WW II. Revere wants to do some more research to see if he is right. He wants to take the painting with him, because he’s concerned about such a valuable piece of work being left in the shop. But Pawlovski insists on keeping it, so Revere reluctantly leaves to do his research. When he returns a few hours later, Pawlovski has been murdered. Guilty over leaving his friend, Revere wants to find out who the killer is. He believes that if he can trace the painting from its last rightful owner to the pawn shop, he’ll be able to find the person responsible. It turns out to be a very dangerous undertaking, but Revere finds out who killed his friend.

Iaian Pears’ The Raphael Affair begins when A British graduate student, Jonathan Argyll, tells the police an odd story. He’s been in Rome, researching a relatively unknown painter named Carlo Mantini. After looking at one particular Mantini that’s hanging in a local church, Argyll has concluded that it might be painted over a very valuable Raphael. By the time the authorities go to get the painting, though, it’s gone – sold illegally to Sir Edward Byrnes. The government pays to have it returned, only to learn, again through Argyll, that the painting underneath might be a fake Raphael. Before that can be checked, though, the painting is lost to fire. Now, the only way to see if there is a real Raphael under a Mantini painting is to try to find another Mantini that’s a likely candidate. So now, there are two cases: the arson and the search for another Mantini. The cases intersect and end in murder, but we do learn the truth about the Raphael and the killing.

There’s also Gail Bowen’s The Gifted. Saskatchewan political scientist Joanne Kilbourne Shreve and her husband Zack are both excited and a little uneasy when their teenage daughter Taylor is invited to submit two of her paintings for a charity auction in aid of the Racette-Hunter Centre. She’s shown one of them to her parents, but she’s kept the other, BlueBoy21, a secret. It’s a portrait of her muse and love interest, Julian Zentner, and that relationship alone has her parents concerned. It turns out, though, that this painting will have consequences that go far beyond a first romance.

And that’s the thing about some paintings. They almost take on a life of their own. And the intrigue and other drama surrounding them can make for a suspenseful story.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Don McLean’s Vincent.