Toulouse 4 Death

It should be easy to return a twice-​​stolen mas­ter­piece – stolen once from a Jewish family by the Nazis and a second time from the Nazi’s by an American soldier at the end of World War II – to the sur­viving members of that Jewish family, right? Not as easy as you might think. Gregory C. Randall has written a tightly woven tale of an aging man’s attempt to return some­thing he removed from a Nazi cache of stolen objects. What he did not count on was a fanatical group of Nazis from Argentina.

Sharon O’Mara is the smart and gutsy private detective from the East Bay suburb of Walnut Creek who is hired by Alain Dumont, a wealthy San Fran­ciscan, to arrange the return of a Toulouse Lautrec painting to the remaining members of the family that had owned it until the rise of the Third Reich. The setting for this story carries O’Mara, and the reader, throughout the greater Bay Area and farther, to Southern Cal­i­fornia where the rightful heirs to the painting live, to Europe and all points beyond.

How did Dumont come by the painting? Why would a seem­ingly inert sect of Nazi hangers-​​on come all the way to Cal­i­fornia to thwart its return? Or is the sect really as far away as Argentina? What is their con­nection to the Napa Valley? Is it the painting they really want? What else did Dumont bring back with him to the States when the war ended? Who is Dumont and did he act alone?

Randall has not written a thriller that takes it time to get going. He moves his char­acters, there is a core cast that starts small and grows incre­men­tally, with such speed and deftness that the book can be read in one sitting. His chase scenes are incredible with a Paris bicycle chase being one of the best in the book. Who would have thought you’d be holding onto your breath as tightly as O’Mara holds onto the handlebars?

For those readers in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area, Sharon O’Mara’s neigh­borhood, and that of Kevin Bryan, her some­times back up and a Lafayette detective, will be as familiar as a ride on BART. For those of you who still wonder what hap­pened to all the art stolen by the Nazis, Toulouse 4 Death will not disappoint.

Toulouse 4 Death is the first oppor­tunity BWS has had to rec­ommend a book that can only be pur­chased on Amazon. Windsor Hill Pub­lishing is a small press out of Walnut Creek. At the moment it is only pub­lishing Randall’s titles, but I liked the product; not just the story, but the book itself. The print is easy on the eyes and the graphics at each new chapter add a neat touch. This reader is looking forward to what Windsor Hill pub­lishes next. –ss