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Outstanding
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Boston Globe Richard Eder
His book is about the pursuit of lost art and also the life of the pursuit. He writes with a novelist's gift for character and a dramatist's for character in action.
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Outstanding
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Chicago Sun-Times Avis Weathersbee
Though it has been 10 years since Harr's award-winning "A Civil Action" was published, this new book shows that he has lost none of his facility for animating stories that many authors would find daunting.
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Outstanding
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The Economist
It is as perfect a work of narrative non-fiction as you could ever hope to read.
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Outstanding
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The New York Times Book Review Bruce Handy
In truth, the book reads better than a thriller because, unlike a lot of best-selling non-fiction authors who write in a more or less novelistic vein (Harr's previous book, "A Civil Action," was made into a John Travolta movie), Harr doesn't plump up his tale.
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Outstanding
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The Onion A.V. Club Scott Tobias
The book is a page-turner, thanks largely to Harr's understanding of the high stakes involved and his gift for infusing urgency into the fastidious labors of professionals.
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Outstanding
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Washington Post Jabari Asim
In less skilled hands, such conditions are a recipe for deadly dullness. But Harr is a proven talent and a shrewd one as well.
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Outstanding
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Library Journal Marcia Welsh
Harr infuses this information with life and suspense. [15 Nov 2005, p.66]
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Outstanding
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Los Angeles Times Jay Parini
This technique of creative nonfiction works quite well to evoke a sense of scene and character, and Harr generates a surprising amount of suspense. [20 Nov 2005, p.R6]
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Favorable
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Publishers Weekly
Granted, Harr is not an art historian, but his lack of artistic analysis of Caravaggio's paintings may frustrate readers who wish to know more about the naturalistic Italian's works.
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Favorable
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Booklist Donna Seaman
As Harr expertly tracks the converging quests of the students and the restorer, he incisively recounts Caravaggio's wild and tragic life, and offers evocative testimony to the resonance of his daring and magnificent work. [1 Oct 2005, p.4]
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Favorable
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Kirkus Reviews
The story would have benefited from more insight into Caravaggio the artist--there's not quite enough here to help the uninformed appreciate the beauty of his work. Still, art lovers and mystery fans should find plenty to ponder and enjoy. [15 Sept 2005, p.1012]
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Favorable
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The New Yorker
Despite the book’s tone of hushed excitement, its long inventory of detail sometimes acquires an archival feel, and its ostensible centerpieces—the drinking, brawling Caravaggio and his elusive painting—make only fleeting appearances.
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Favorable
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The New York Times Michiko Kakutani
Because the author skims so lightly over Caravaggio's own story and the qualities of his work that make him such a presciently modern painter, this is a volume best read in conjunction with another book about the artist - preferably one that is copiously illustrated with pictures of the master's luminous and unsettling art.
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Favorable
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Houston Chronicle Michael Hardy
Could be described as high-brow Dan Brown or low-brow Umberto Eco depending on the reader's generosity.
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Mixed
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San Francisco Chronicle Jason Roberts
An amiable, readable but not enthralling mismatch of talent and tale, and proof that the storyteller cannot transcend the story itself.
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Unfavorable
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Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling
Harr is a smooth writer, but some of his novelistic detail seems dubiously re-created.
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Unfavorable
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Chicago Tribune Richard Stern
His style is dull, he dwells on boring minutiae, he has a poor ear for speech, and he is better at describing process, such as the cleaning of the painting, than what people think or look like. Caravaggio's thrilling clarity may have inspired his project, but unfortunately not his prose. [6 Nov 2005]
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