The resurrection man : a Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn mystery /

Sarah and Max's initial suspicions about Bartolo Arbalest, the "resurrection man" who has suddenly appeared in Boston, concern his business of art and furniture restoration, his secretive nature, and his insistence on his helpers all living with him in seclusion. He does fine work, commands high fees, employs a bodyguard, and cooks sumptuous dinners for his chosen acolytes, a rum bunch of dubious ne'er-do-wells and Beantown society types down on their luck. To Max and Sarah, the whole enterprise fairly screams of illegality. Then events grow more labyrinthine, as works recently restored start to vanish, and owners meet bad ends. Bartolo might be weird, but is he actually criminally inclined? Or are some of Boston's more prominent citizens less than honorable? MacLeod has a loyal following but isn't to everyone's taste. She's incurably arch and inclined to let her plots stall on Wodehouse-like wordplay. But once readers have taken Sarah and Max to their hearts, the atmosphere of hastily improvised sleuthing, society talk, and rarefied skulduggery makes a cozy treat. ~--Peter Robertson

This tenth outing for investigators (specializing in art and antiques) Max and Sarah Bittersohn (The Silver Ghost, 1988, etc.) finds them spending a summer in Sarah's Beacon Hill house in Boston and deeply involved in the murder of Sarah's aged old friend George Protheroe, found stabbed to death in the overstuffed mansion he shared with unflappable wife Anora. Max and Sarah sense a connection to recent thefts of artworks newly restored by Bartolo Arbalest, who calls himself ``the Resurrection Man.'' After a series of eerie misfortunes, Arbalest has set up a tightly controlled atelier of artisans and restorers--all of them bodyguarded by patrician Carnaby Goudge. As mourners gather at the Protheroe home after George's funeral, a second murder begins to reveal the long-ago-in-India roots of the present carnage. The heavy-handed, near-parody plot is loaded with excess in all departments--myriad details of food, clothes, and furniture; arch dialogue; red herrings; fey characters; and, in the end, massive ennui. Strictly for faithful fans.