The Art of Murder

by Anne Woodward

Is art gallery curator Sia - intelligent and not given to flights of fancy - imagining things? Her boss, Vic, certainly thinks so. While putting together an exhibition of her father’s paintings, Sia notices something very odd. It’s as if the artist has grown weary of his subject and erased them from one of his paintings. But Sia’s father is dead. And she doesn’t believe in ghosts.

When a spate of murders begins, each victim is closer to Sia than the last. And before every subsequent death, yet another person is removed from a painting. Can she tell anyone her suspicions about the killer? Who will believe her, when she hardly believes herself?

Kindle Edition

Published July 17, 2025

Reviews

[Jan Kaneen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book starts with a proper bang - drops you into such a dramatic moment and then introduces a literary conceit so scintillating you just have to read on the find out how as well as why figures are going missing from paintings as murders happen. But the thing that really made this a five star read for me is the rendering of the main protag, Sia who is smart, flawed, human, clever, sassy. The story is written in the first person from Sia's point of view, and the way we see inside her mind, experience her thoughts, her gut reactions, how she sometimes processes moments by looking away is so wonderfully rendered. I proper loved her and would defo like to meet her again. And the ending was a surprise and emotional for this reader. Not what I was expected and so wonderfully worked it made me cry. This book is a page turner of a murder mystery with wonderful flourishes of magical realism that will keep you hooked to the end.