The Killing Art

by Deidre Stein Greben Breezing down the LIE with no traffic may sound like the stuff of fiction, and in Jonathan Santlofer’s new thriller, “The Killing Art,” it is. The road trip in question, from Manhattan to the tony hamlets of the East End, occurs a little past daybreak in the dead of winter. It is one of several taken by the novel’s protagonist, Kate McKinnon, a Queens cop turned art historian, to visit the Springs studio of the fictional artist Phillip Zander, the last surviving member of the New York School’s “Ab-Ex Big Boys.” Long Island topography is a prominent motif in “clue paintings” created specifically for the new book by author and artist Santlofer, 58, whose works are in collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. Painting hints The black-and-white illustrations serve up hints for McKinnon (and Santlofer’s readers) to decipher about a series of murders and … Read more