Sacre Bleu

February 6, 2012
Art history is playfully—and perilously—rewritten in this ambitious novel by bestseller Moore (Bite Me). Working backward from the death of Vincent Van Gogh in 1890, we meet frustrated painter and favored son of a Paris bakery family, Lucien Lessard, whose best pal happens to be Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, that fabled frequenter of brothels. All his life, Lucien has heard words of wisdom and tutelage not only from Toulouse-Lautrec, but also Renoir, Pissarro, and Theo Van Gogh. But after Toulouse-Lautrec receives a strange letter from Van Gogh, dated just before his death, the two begin to investigate “the Colorman,” an odd figure who sold the titular brilliant ultramarine paint to all of these fabled painters during their most prolific, mad, and forgotten periods of work (the Colorman’s arrivals also coincided with the painters’ most intense love affairs). During their investigation, Lucien and Toulouse-Lautrec will discover that the mystery and Lucien’s muse, Juliette, are intimately connected. Spanning nearly 30 years—with a brief interlude in Roman times—the story is steeped in Western art: Renaissance Italy; medieval cathedrals; the fields and studios of pre, post, and high impressionism. Though the question at the story’s heart is less interesting than the fictional anecdotes about the great masters, fans of Moore’s mix of wit and slapstick will be pleased. Photos. Agent: Nicholas Ellison, the Nicholas Ellison Agency.

May 28, 2012
In 1890, Vincent van Gogh appeared before a doctor suffering from a gunshot wound to his chest. Van Gogh’s subsequent death established him as the art world’s most famous suicide. But in this rollicking adventure set in late-19th-century France, Van Gogh’s friend Lucien Lessard receives a letter written in the painter’s final hours that prompts him to investigate further. Lessard soon discovers a mystery revolving around the Colorman, a merchant selling mixed pigments to artists, in particular a rare ultramarine called the Sacred Blue. Joined by the ribald Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Lucien resolves to discover the truth. Narrator Euan Morton delivers an entertaining performance that brings Moore’s novel to life. He shifts easily from the refined accents of Monet, Renoir, and Gauguin to the bombast of Toulouse-Lautrec and the Yankee accent of Whistler. With its comic blend of art history, murder mystery, and doomed romance, listeners will be laughing and guessing until the audiobook’s conclusion. A William Morrow hardcover.