Rachel Pastan (Get this book) Hitchcockian suspense infiltrates the cloistered contemporary art scene in Pastan's riveting third novel. On her first trip to the Venice Biennale, the unnamed narrator, a naive young curator, is taken under the wing of a wealthy, well-bred man named Bernard Augustin, who offers her the job of a lifetime at the Nauquasset, his jewel-box museum on Cape Cod, Mass. She seizes the opportunity, but not without some hesitation: all she knows about "the Nauk, " as it's called, is that its previous curator, an enigmatic Russian beauty named Alena, disappeared two years ago under mysterious circumstances, and that her disappearance broke Bernard's heart. Flush with erotic intrigues and insights into real, working artists, Pastan has written a smart, chilling thriller that leaves readers thoroughly spooked. Publisher's Weekly
