Killing the Emperors: Robert Amiss/Baroness Jack Troutbeck Mysteries (Robert Amiss/Baronness Jack Troutback Mysteries)
Baroness Ida Jack Troutbeck is kidnapped, along with an assortment of art critics, consultants, historians, collectors, gallery owners, and artists, all of whom, except Jack, are enthusiastic about the conceptual art movement. Their sociopathic kidnapper, Oleg Sarkovsky, believes each of the people he has snatched has wronged him in some way, and he is determined to exact revenge. While Jack’s friends Robert Amiss and Mary Lou Dinsmore work behind the scenes to locate and free Jack, Mary Lou’s husband, Detective Inspector Ellis Pooley, handles the official investigation. As some of the kidnap victims begin to show up dead in staged conceptual art installations, the ante is upped dramatically. Jack is the only one of those kidnapped who knows that those who have disappeared from the group are being murdered, but she tries to keep spirits up and protect the others as best she can. Less a mystery, since the reader is privy to events at the location where the victims are held, the novel does deliver suspense as it skewers the conceptual art movement. --Sue OBrien--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.