A 68-year-old businessman is found dead in his home. The man was suffocated with a pillow and his left ear was severed. And the Paris criminal brigade can find no trace of it anywhere… The theory of a burglary that went wrong is in doubt, especially since nothing seems at first glance to have been stolen. Until the police got their hands on a photo of a painting representing Arles women out for a walk in a safe. Where did this painting go that experts have authenticated as being a work painted with four hands in Arles in 1888 by Van Gogh (who, let us remember, cut off his ear during a fit of madness) and Gauguin ? A painting worth several tens of millions of euros that the businessman was preparing to offer to the Musée d’Orsay? Was theft ultimately the motive for the murder? Unless the business manager is hiding some shameful secrets…
Eric Mercier is a doctor in art history and exhibition curator. It is therefore like the back of his hand that he knows the life and works of the two painters whom he had fun associating with a detective story. To the originality of the plot is therefore added more than solid knowledge about the world of art… To the point of putting us in doubt: what if Van Gogh and Gauguin had indeed created a unique work together? !
The Secret of Van Gogh, Eric Mercier, La Martinière, 384 pages, €21.
