Killing the Emperors

✍ Scribed by Edwards, Ruth Dudley

• Publisher: Allison & Busby
• Year: 2012;2013
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 178 KB
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN-13: 9781464200496

✦ Synopsis

Why have luminaries of the world of conceptual art been kidnapped? And why has Baroness Jack Troutbeck - who has publicly described them all as knaves or fools - gone missing too? As victims surface publicly and horrifically dead, in what become The Hommage Murders', can she be rescued in time?

From Booklist

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

Review

" Imagine And Then There Were None written with wicked humor and a major grievance about money, not taste, ruling the art world."--Kirkus Reviews

"Edwards is a master of delightful, biting satire, whether demolishing real or imaginary poseurs." --Publishers Weekly

• Finalist 1982 New Blood Dagger Award for Corridors of Death
  Finalist 1992 Last Laugh Dagger Award for Clubbed to Death
  Finalist 1995 Last Laugh Dagger Award for Ten Lords A-Leaping
  Finalist 2005 Lefty Award for Carnage on the Committee