Synopses & Reviews
The sinister and provocative thriller from crime writings freshest new voice.Ethan Muller is struggling to establish his reputation as a dealer in the cut-throat world of contemporary art, when he stumbles onto a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: in a decaying New York slum, an elderly tenant named Victor Cracke has disappeared, leaving behind a staggeringly large trove of original artwork. Nobody can say anything for certain about Cracke, except that he came and went in solitude for nearly forty years, his genius hidden and unacknowledged. All that is about to change.
So what if, strictly speaking, the art doesnt belong to Ethan? He can sell itand he does just that, mounting a wildly successful show. Buyers clamor. Critics sing. Museums are interested, and Ethans photo looks great in The New York Times. Then things go to hell.
Suddenly the police want to talk to him. It seems that Victor Cracke had a nasty past, and the drawings hanging in the Muller Gallery have begun to look a lot less like art and a lot more like evidence.
Is Victor Cracke a genius? A murderer? Both? Is there a difference? Sucked into an investigation four decades cold, Ethan will uncover a secret legacy of shame and death, one that touches horrifyingly close to home.
Kellermans tight, assured prose is electrifying, exhilarating, and compulsively readable. Part confessional, part philosophical inquiry, Stop is the detective novel reimagined like never before.
Review
Greed gets Ethan Muller, a 33-year-old Manhattan art dealer, into hot water in Kellermans superb third stand-alone thriller (after
Trouble). When reclusive artist Victor Cracke disappears, Muller winds up taking possession of the boxes and boxes of intense, disturbing drawings that Cracke left behind in his shabby Queens apartment. A favorable
New York Times article helps fuel lucrative sales at an exhibit of Crackes drawings at Mullers Chelsea gallery. Soon, though, Muller starts to receive cryptic, vaguely threatening letters. He also hears from a retired NYPD detective, Lee McGrath, who recognizes the face of one of the boys in a Cracke drawing as belonging to the victim of a 40-year-old unsolved murder. That revelation turns Muller into an amateur detective as he attempts to discover how the dead boys imagealong with those of several other victimsmade its way into the pictures. Kellerman has a gift for creating compelling characters as well as for crafting an ingenious plot that grabs the reader and refuses to let go.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Praise for TROUBLE
Disturbingly and deliciously different, altogether perfect for our times.
Los Angeles Times
A thriller so tightly wired that the readers self-control shatters.
The Baltimore Sun
Synopsis
From bestselling author Kellerman--crime writing's freshest new voice--comes a sinister and provocative thriller.
Synopsis
From the national bestselling author of "Trouble" comes this sinister and provocative thriller, now in a tall Premium Edition. From its first hip, cynical, snarky, confessional pages, this deftly plotted novel rivets the reader.--"Booklist."
About the Author
Jesse Kellerman is a recent graduate of Harvard and an MFA from Brandeis. His award-winning plays have been producted throughout the United States and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He received the 2003 Princess Grace Award, given to America's most promising young playwright, and has been a fellow at New Dramatists.