Relying on real-world research on the death of Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh, two retired UW-Madison English professors have written a rich and colorful novel that sometimes seems almost as real as the history it’s based upon.
Death on a Starry Night — the title a twist on one of Van Gogh’s most famous works, “Starry Night” — is the third novel in the Nora Barnes and Toby Sandler mystery series by Betsy Draine and Michael Hinden. The book continues the University of Wisconsin Press’ recent run of publishing high-profile moody and memorable mysteries via its Terrace Books imprint, including last year’s Death at Gills Rock by Patricia Skalka and A Winsome Murder by James DeVita.
In Death on a Starry Night, narrator Nora Barnes is an art historian who returns to France (the site of the series’ first book, Murder in Lascaux) for a van Gogh conference in the medieval village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Nora’s husband, Toby Sandler, whose bemused sense of humor seems out of place among a gaggle of quirky van Gogh aficionados, is along for a vacation. Also attending with the couple: Nora’s sexy younger sister, Angie, who is considering a life of celibacy in a convent, and her feisty travel companion Sister Glenda, who’s not immune to the temptation posed by a divine glass of wine.
But on the eve of the conference, one of the keynote speakers — an older Frenchwoman promising to unveil new evidence that proves van Gogh was killed rather than committed suicide in 1890 at age 37 — is found murdered. Nora boasts prior experience as an amateur sleuth, and she and her companions help local authorities track down the culprit.
Readers who cherish France, fine dining, classic art or simply a smart mystery will find plenty to enthrall them in Death on a Starry Night.
At least in the art world, though, Draine and Hinden know they’re courting controversy by daring to rewrite parts of van Gogh’s rich life and contentious demise.
A detailed afterword delves into the murder theory that made international headlines and is detailed in Van Gogh: The Life, the 1,000-page biography by renowned art authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, which came out in 2012. While Draine and Hinden dispute that book’s conclusion, they also admit that the idea van Gogh was shot at close range by someone other than himself more than 125 years ago “could be the stuff of fiction.”
This book is that stuff.
The authors will discuss Death on a Starry Night on Tuesday, April 12, 7 pm, Mystery to Me Books, and Tuesday, April 19, 4 pm, French House, 633 N. Frances St.
Death on a Starry Night: A Nora Barnes and Toby Sandler Mystery by Betsy Draine and Michael Hinden, University of Wisconsin Press/Terrace Books
