THE GENIUS, by Jesse Kellerman

(originally posted on March 22, 2008)

As good as Kellerman's first two thrillers were, this is really quite an achievement. He takes a frankly narcissistic protagonist and wrings out enough empathy that I got caught up in the surrounding suspense involving the discovered artwork of a seemingly lost genius, the petty jealousies of the art world and a decades-old cold case. The end result can only be labeled a cerebral high-wire act interspersed with affecting flashbacks that add to the story momentum, not detract from it.