Burnt Orange Heresy

A driven art critic's plan to steal a painting leads to murder in this classic neo-noir novel by the author of the Hoke Moseley series. Fast-talking, backstabbing, womanizing, and fiercely ambitious art critic James Figueras will do anything blackmail, burglary, and beyond to make a name for himself. When an unscrupulous collector offers Figueras a career-making chance to interview Jacques Debierue, the greatest living and most reclusive artist, the critic must decide how far he will go to become the art-world celebrity he hungers to be. Will Figueras stop at the opportunity to skim some cream for himself or push beyond morality's limits to a bigger payoff?Crossing the art world with the underworld, Willeford creates a novel of dark hue and high aesthetic polish. The Burnt Orange Heresy the 1970s crime classic now back in print has lost none of its savage delights as it re-creates the making of a murderer, calmly and with exquisite tension, while satirizing the workings of the art world as the ultimate con. Now a major motion picture starring Donald Sutherland and Mick JaggerPraise for The Burnt Orange Heresy"e;Stunning . . . A novel full of genuine fun that also manages to make a level statement about the art world and its hermetic credulities."e; New Yorker