art

By Karen Holt Jonathan Santlofer writes his heroes tall. “I’m 5’7″ so I like to compensate,” he says. And he writes them brave, something else he insists he’s not. “I’m a big baby. If I see a knife on the table, I think it’s going to jump up and stab me.” But Santlofer and his characters do have one thing, a big one, in common—a preoccupation with art. In his mysteries, art fuels everything that matters. Killers conflate violence with artistic expression, while the good guys look to visual art for clues to catch the villains. As for Santlofer, he was a successful painter for decades before he became an author. He has been pursuing both careers since publishing his first mystery, The Death Artist, in 2002. With his fourth book, Anatomy of Fear (Morrow, Apr.) he combines his two talents, in what the publisher is calling “a novel of visual suspense.” A police sketch … Read more