The Alternative Detective

By Aaron Elkins

Book Overview

Unqualified to do anything else in an America he's spent most of his life avoiding, Hob Draconian, aging ex-hippie turned private investigator, sets up the Alternative Detective Agency. While Hob's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312853815
• ISBN13: 9780312853815
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Forge
• Length: 255 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

A Chris Norgren Mystery...

A famous art collector wants to give the Seattle Art Museum an original Rembrandt...so why isn't Chris Norgren, curator of Renaissance and Baroque Art, smiling? Perhaps because the gift seems too good to be true. The collector is the elderly Rene Vachey, one of the art world's most controversial eccentrics. The Rembrandt has come out of nowhere...in fact, from a Paris junk shop...with no known history of ownership. Vachey will let Chris examine the painting, but he's not allowed to make scientific tests before he officially accepts the painting for the museum. Could the whole episode be a cruel hoax? In attempting to find out Chris must use all his wits and expertise in a perplexing quest for a killer, the evaluation of a painting, and the untangling of a complex man's many layered past.

Good Mystery - Art Related

If you love mysteries dealing with art then you will love this book. Chris Norgren is a curator for the Seattle Art Museum and he gets involved in some interesting adventures. Pick up this book or one of the others in the series, I am sure you will agree with me that it is well worth your time. It is an interesting read. Aaron Elkins wrote three books in the Chris Norgren series: "Old Scores", "A Deceptive Clarity" and "Glancing Light". I wish Mr. Elkins would continue the series.

Art Mystery

When eccentric art patron, Rene Vachey, decides to donate an original Rembrandt to the Seattle Art Museum, curator Chris Norgren is cautious. Rene is known for playing tricks on museums and making them look silly so Chris flies to France to inspect the painting. Shortly after he arrives, he is thrown out a window and later that night, Rene is murdered. Fearing that the painting may be the reason for the murder, Chris starts to investigate. I love this series because of the way that Aaron Elkins shows artwork through the eyes of Chris Norgren as well as for the good mystery.

A LITTLE ART CAN KILL YOU!

I have read several Aaron Elkins books but this was the first involving Chris Norgren. Chris is a curator of Renaissance art at the Seattle Art Museum and goes to Paris to view a newly found Rembrandt that is being given to the museum by Rene Vachey. Rene is known in the field as a jokester and Chris is dubious as to the authenticity of the painting, especially with the limitations Rene has set on what can be used to verify the painting as being a Rembrandt.Things heat up and get pretty hairy as Rene Vachey is killed and Chris becomes the next target for murder. Who knew that the art world was so dangerous?