A Death in Bali
A Jenna Murphy Mystery
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- $26.99
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- $26.99
Publisher Description
Intrepid young curator-turned-private eye Jenna Murphy—whom readers first met in A Head in Cambodia—goes to the tourist town of Ubud to study early twentieth-century Balinese painting. But her first discovery when she arrives in Indonesia is the speared body of expat artist Flip Hendricks. She soon is working with an old friend, a detective for the Ubud police force, to seek the killer. Jenna suspects the motive for the killing has to do with Flip’s paintings. Detective Wayan Tyo is not so sure.
Is Jenna right, or are there other forces at work in this paradise overrun with tourists? The threats to Jenna’s safety pile up, until she can no longer deny that her life is in danger. Her entanglement with various men only clouds her judgment and complicates the situation.
As she did in the first Jenna Murphy book, in A Death in Bali, Nancy Tingley draws on her extensive experience as a scholar of Asian art to bring the armchair traveler an immersive, inside view of the art world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Art historian Tingley's plodding sequel to 2017's A Head in Cambodia takes Jenna Murphy, a curator at California's Searles Museum, to Ubud, on the island of Bali, to interview Dutch artist Flip Hendricks as part of her research into Balinese paintings. On entering Hendricks's house, she finds the man lying dead on the floor, a spear run straight through his body. Jenna impulsively grabs a small sack tied at the corpse's waist containing a tiny bronze figure. The investigating officer, Wayan Tyo, who happens to have known Jenna as a child, makes her feel even more guilty about tampering with the crime scene. Jenna doggedly pursues her belief that the answer to the killing lies in Hendricks having painted fakes that were presented as authentic Balinese artwork. This informed and often fascinating look at the world of Balinese art is marred by clich d developments, dull romantic entanglements, and mediocre prose ("I'd known nothing of death until this year, when murder had invaded both my life and my dreams").
