Automat
Book Feature - Automat by Stephanie Kane
HBL Note: My reading schedule has gone out the window - there just isn’t time with all the decisions I have to make as we rebuild our home after the fire. My “extra time” is now spent picking out faucets, deciding where to place recessed lights, and buying (and re-buying) appliances…long story for another post. I was SO looking forward to reading this short novel. At only 189 pages I thought I could certainly fit it in. But my grand plans just aren’t working out of me these days. ha! Automat had the recipe for an Ashley-friendly novel with ties to art, museums, with just a touch of mystery to keep those pages turning. This novel is a deep dive into the artwork of Edward Hopper wrapped in a murder mystery. Scroll down to read more about this book by Stephanie Kane (and someone please read it for me and tell me all about it!)
From the publisher:
Who is the enigmatic woman in Edward Hopper's famous painting, Automat? When the young actress playing her is brutally murdered at the launch of The Denver Art Museum's blockbuster Hopper exhibition, Conservator of Paintings Lily Sparks feels compelled to use her special gift of discernment to solve the crime. Her perfect eye tells her that just as the celebrated artist kept painting the same iconic woman, the killer must keep killing her.
The stony blonde in Hopper's paintings never aged. As Lily's hunt takes her from the artist's early years in Paris to her own museum's exhibition to the theatrical company bringing the paintings to life, she realizes the man in Hopper's paintings also holds clues to the killer's identity. Is stepping into a painting herself the only way Lily can stop him?
Automat is Stephanie Kane's second crime novel set in the art world and featuring Lily Sparks. It follows A Perfect Eye.