Still Lives: A Novel

Product Description

Twelve shocking paintings. Eleven famous murders. One missing artist . . . and one woman driven to find her—this Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine Selection is a “stunning achievement” (Los Angeles Times).

Kim Lord is an avant–garde figure, feminist icon, and agent provocateur in the L.A. art scene. Her groundbreaking new exhibition Still Lives is comprised of self–portraits depicting herself as famous, murdered women―the Black Dahlia, Chandra Levy, Nicole Brown Simpson, among many others―and the works are as compelling as they are disturbing, implicating a culture that is too accustomed to violence against women.

As the city’s richest art patrons pour into the Rocque Museum’s opening night, all the staff, including editor Maggie Richter, hope the event will be enough to save the historic institution’s flailing finances.

Except Kim Lord never shows up to her own gala.

Fear mounts as the hours and days drag on and Lord remains missing. Suspicion falls on the up–and–coming gallerist Greg Shaw Ferguson, who happens to be Maggie’s ex. A rogue’s gallery of eccentric art world figures could also have motive for the act, and as Maggie gets drawn into her own investigation of Lord’s disappearance, she’ll come to suspect all of those closest to her.

Set against a culture that often fetishizes violence,
Still Lives is a page–turning exodus into the art world’s hall of mirrors, and one woman’s journey into the belly of an industry flooded with money and secrets.

“It’s a thrilling mystery that will leave you wondering which characters you can and can’t trust . . . There’s a twist at the end that still keeps us up at night, it’s THAT good.” —Reese Witherspoon (A Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine Selection)

Review

“It’s a thrilling mystery that will leave you wondering which characters you can and can’t trust . . . There’s a twist at the end that still keeps us up at night, it’s THAT good.” —Reese Witherspoon (A Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine Selection) A REESE’S BOOK CLUB x HELLO SUNSHINE Selection A BOOK OF THE MONTH SelectionAn Amazon Best Mystery/Thriller of the YearNamed a Best Book to Read by Time, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Buzzfeed, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, Refinery29, and more. 

Praise for Still Lives

“[A] mysterious page turner.” —
TIME, 1 of 22 New Books to Read This Summer

“Mystery and murder cloud this feminist story set in the heart of Los Angeles’ art scene. When an avant–garde artist goes missing on the day her groundbreaking exhibition opens, the story spins out in many provocative directions.” —
Entertainment Weekly, 1 of 20 New Books to Read in June

“It’s a thrilling mystery that will leave you wondering which characters you can and can’t trust . . . There’s a twist at the end that still keeps us up at night, it’s THAT good.” —Reese Witherspoon (A Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine Selection)

“A suspenseful, splashy story about fame, sex, and how our culture views women’s bodies . . . I also loved that it tackled the sticky subject of how women are portrayed in art, culture, and the media—and the consequences of those portrayals. This is a thrilling book, and a much–needed one. Read it and you’ll see what I mean.” —Book of the Month

“[A] splendid art–world thriller . . . Ms. Hummel captures characters in a single stroke . . . Having herself worked in a museum, she speaks with authority of that sealed world . . .
Still Lives is both savvy and lyrical—the perfect beach read for either coast.” —
The Wall Street Journal

“This is not only a satisfying mystery, but also an ambitious, intelligent and often uncomfortable study of gender, violence and art.” —
The Guardian

“Yet while
Still Lives, evidently, has a heck of a hook to draw in a wide swath of readers, the book isn’t quite the escapist thriller the bones of the plot might indicate. Indeed, it’s a provocative book that digs deeply into art’s history of depicting women brutally and fetishistically, and that pro