The Schiele Slaughters

Retired art history professor Megan Crespi, an expert on the Expressionist artist Egon Schiele, is called to Vienna to help solve the brutal murder of a museum night watchman whose naked cadaver was propped up in the same pose as the nude self-portrait by Schiele above him. A series of attacks relating to Schiele occur, ranging from "censoring" of his nude figures' private parts with spray paint to desecration of his burial site. Amid restitution lawsuits and murderous competing gallery owners, Megan's investigations are endangered by the fanatical Grand Master of a secret sect dedicated to the obliteration of obscenity. Her own life in danger, the twisting Schiele trail leaves multiple corpses in its wake and leads Megan from conniving Vienna to remote Kaliningrad in Russia, to ancient Krumau in Bohemia, and bustling Milan in Italy as she hunts for a possible hidden trove of major Schiele paintings. What she discovers is undreamt of and leaves the Schiele world stunned and covetous. Includes Readers Guide.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria's Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her "Egon Schiele's Portraits" was nominated for the National Book Award and her "The Changing Image of Beethoven" is used in classrooms around the country, both now from Sunstone Press. Her travels, recorded in the memoir, "In Passionate Pursuit," extend from Europe to Antarctica and are reflected in this, her second mystery novel in the Megan Crespi Mystery Series. The first, "Killing for Klimt" is also from Sunstone Press.