The Bottom Line: A wonderfully weird crime, spectacular landscapes and big-time character development make Incident at Devil’s Finger unmissable.
The third book in Larry Witham’s art-crime series opens in visually spectacular Sedona, Arizona. Having somehow secured a permit to perform a stunt among the iconic red rocks, performance artist Magnifica plans to jump from a helicopter and parachute through the Red Rock Pinnacle monuments – all in the height of tourist season.
Just when series fans might have imagined what a Julian Peale vacation might look like – a private tour of Claude Monet’s Giverny estate, perhaps? – we instead find him with his wife at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. But rest assured that Peale, like Hercule Poirot and every iconic fictional detective before him, cannot truly take a vacation from his work. Even before the book’s primary crime is obvious, Peale’s is in fact already mixing business with southwestern sightseeing pleasure.
Along the way, Peale’s wife catches wind of Magnifica’s planned stunt and convinces her husband to attend. The planned artistic spectacle ends in an explosion that nearly kills Magnifica and destroys the iconic Devil’s Finger rock formation. Is foul play suspected? Of course it is, and as fictional crimes go, it’s a wonderfully weird one.
Naturally, when Peale’s boss Castelli is hired to investigate foul play, Peale is called to action. It so happens that Magnifica was the daughter of a famous artist, and there may be a significant art Trust at stake. Promising an open checkbook, the client wants Castelli & Associates to find out who is behind the attack and investigate potential Russian mob connections along the way.
Peale’s adventure out west is thus extended, as the new case requires him to travel to LA and the Bay Area (as well as more familiar series locations back east). From the very first chapter, Witham keeps readers several steps ahead of Peale’s investigation by offering telling glimpses into the activities of cybercriminal Jonny Montgomery, pilot-for-hire Arthur Bracken, Russian art dealer Mikhail Federov and others. Only the most adept readers will solve the case before our hero does, riding along with Peale as he pieces it all together is great fun.
Through it all, Witham includes intriguing insights about cyberpunk culture, the role of art in environmentalism and generational alienation. For series fans, however, the book’s most fascinating development is the deep look into Peale’s personal life with his wife and stepson. At the outset, it’s not entirely clear whether the Peales’ remarks about the four-hundred-foot fountain spray at the Bellagio – “One for the history books” – is sincere or sarcastic. But as the story unfolds, it’s clear that while the Peales are incredibly sophisticated, they also possess an insatiable curiosity and appreciation for art in many forms. In a genre in which most detectives are battling personal demons, it’s refreshing to spend time with one who isn’t.
