Mortal Radiance

I found it fascinating and well researched. It made me learn more about Ms O'Keefe as person.
Well plotted, a bit slow at times, it kept me guessing.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A sharp mystery, although with maybe a few too many historical personages…

I am a big fan of mysteries that use real historical figures as protagonists and/or supporting characters, and I also like mysteries set in the US Southwest, where my dad’s family mostly lives. So I was intrigued by the possibilities for Kathryn Lasky’s new series featuring Georgia O’Keefe as the detective. And just as an extra bonus, I also quite like many of Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings…

Mortal Radiance, which is the second book in the series, met my expectations. It’s sharply written and full of famous characters from the 1930s. I won’t list them all, since some of the names might be minor spoilers. But there were a lot, and possibly even a few too many. I wouldn’t have previously thought that would be possible, but I felt somewhat constrained to have so many well-known characters rubbing elbows, since I kept trying to remember what I knew of everyone’s “real” history, and how they might all actually interact. Luckily, the Author’s Note at the end helped by filling in some of my blank spots. And it also vouched for the first-chapter incident involving cremated ashes and concrete (!!!), which I would have bet real money - although not very much real money - was made up.

On the other hand, the wide-ranging plot kept me reading, with some bits of the story line hyper-local, and others cosmopolitan and international. I very much liked the contrast between Georgia’s approach to solving mysteries, and that of the local sheriff (and Georgia’s lover), Ryan McCaffrey. And like all good mystery authors, Lasky manages to weave everything together by the end – complete with an unexpected twist or two.

All-in-all, Mortal Radiance is well worth a read if you like historical mysteries, but if you are sometimes iffy about historicals, you might try the sample first, and see if it’s to your taste. And finally, my thanks to Severn House and NetGalley for the review copy!

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.