A mystery novel so enthralling, that you can't but devour!

The Black Painting is a standalone mystery novel by Neil Olson, centered around Teresa in her quest to discover her family's secrets and the real story behind the disappearance of a Goya painting.

Teresa's grandfather invites his family over to his secluded mansion, to discuss with them his will. Only for Teresa to find him dead as soon as she arrives. An investigation begins, and soon Teresa starts questioning all of her relatives and their motives for wanting her grandfather dead. Oh, and they are a lot.

An intriguing and captivating story, a fabulously-written novel, which I felt like I inhaled, as I finished it in under 2 days.

The mood was dark and matched the plot perfectly, the main heroine was brilliant and I loved reading her thoughts as she uncovered the family's secrets and gave us her opinions on her relatives.

There was suspense, there was mystery and a smart protagonist, perfectly suited to this story line.
As a crime literature enthusiast, I am adding it to my favorite mystery novels ever printed and intending to actively spread the word about it!

I am not usually a fan of murder mysteries, but this one caught my eye! At places this was a real page turner

The story starts when the Morse family head passes away, leaving behind a few children and four grandchildren. All are after his money, regardless of knowing how much there is actually. But, one thing they know is, there was a Goya painting that was stolen, but could be somewhere for them to find. The family get together to their New England estate to attend the funeral and especially the cousins are very interested in the painting. As we go along the story, we get to know some facts from the past, and it all comes to where everyone was on the day the painting has gone missing. Eventually, we learn that the grandfather might have been killed, and the family members start to point fingers at each other. On top, the story gets more quirky with the possibility of a ghost in the painting.
Coming to my thoughts about the book , I can't say this was the smoothest of my reads. The synopsis sounded like a really good suspense, and a family drama, which sounded like something I would love. However, I found lots of gaps in the story telling. The characters were not built deep enough so we connect to them more. I started skimming and skipping too often, because there were too many details on unimportant aspects.
On the other hand, I really liked the writing style. It's a shame it's not matched with an equally strong plot and better character building. In the end, it was not a bad book, but more on the average side for me.

The estranged and disfunctional Morse family are brought together following the death of the art-loving grandfather. Art student Theresa is left the task of curating the family art collection. However years before one of Goya’s Black Paintings owned by the family has gone missing. A dubious private investigator called Dave is recruited by one of the Uncles to investigate the family and missing staff. I was interested in this novel due to the art element which is actually just a small part. The characters are all thoroughly unlikable which is intended by the author, but I’m afraid this mystery story is a bit flat with little tension and therefore I have given it 3 stars. Thanks to Harlequin UK and Netgalley for a feview copy.

I thought this book was an interesting read. I enjoyed the premise of the story (a mysterious death, a painting supposedly capable of bringing death to those saw it, family secrets etc) and was pretty hooked right from the start. Lots of the character detail was well realised (irritations of close family members) and the story ticked over nicely. A well-paced and enjoyable book.

A demoniac and mysterious painting was stolen from the Morse family house during a funeral. The only witnesses were children, one of which was passed-out sick and another was found catatonic, and the housekeeper who was hit on the head before the robbery. Since then, members of the family have drifted apart, each blaming the other, until the patriarch summons each of the four cousin to the house. But when two of them arrive at the house, they find their grandfather dead, seemingly of a heart attack, but with a look of fear on his face. Teresa, one of the cousins, thinks that there is more to her grandfather’s death and begins to suspect and investigates her family with the help of a private detective.

The novel is mysterious with a touch of fantasy element and it focuses on the mystery of the painting as much as this dysfunctional family and its many problems. Although the story is suspenseful and intriguing, the novel didn’t completely captivate me and I didn’t feel connection to any of the characters. Nevertheless, this is still an enjoyable and engaging read with a few horror moments.

Thanks HQ and netgalley for this ARC.

This book takes family dysfunction to a new level. All the discord makes for great drama, dynamite, and passion. The mystery of the painting, murder, and love stories makes this a explosively awesome read.

Alfred Arthur Morse is an art dealer and was the owner of a mysterious and frightening Francisco Goya self-portrait, so frightening that many people believed the painting to be haunted, cursing anyone who looked directly at it. Fifteen years ago this painting was stolen and the repercussions - who really stole it? Is there a curse? - are still affecting Alfred's family today.

Spanish artist Francisco Goya (1746-1828) did create a disturbing series, known as the Black Paintings. He painted them directly onto the walls of his house and they were later transferred to canvas. Highly evocative and creepy, it's easy to see how they inspired Neil Olsen to create a story around a possible demon living in one of them. The haunted self-portrait of the novel is fictional, but sits perfectly within these paintings. However, looking at them verses the cover of the book, I think the publishers went with too jolly a design that doesn't completely represent the artist this story is inspired by, or the sinister Gothic atmosphere that the book is trying to portray. Perhaps they didn't want to scare away potential readers...

Anyway, back to the plot. Alfred (who I must point out is old-money wealthy and not a particularly nice man) is in the process of calling his grandchildren (Teresa, one of our narrators - she suffers migraines and seizures, Audrey, who is bold, brassy and conniving, her reclusive brother James, studying to be a doctor and Kenny, the big-shot lawyer) to his stately home in Owl's Point to issue them with caveats in order to secure their inheritance. However, somewhat ironically, Teresa and Audrey arrive only to find him dead already, not only that: "'You saw his face,' Teresa said pointedly. The other woman was quiet for a moment. 'Yes' 'Something scared him to death.'" So now the family have to deal with the death of their patriarch and their own family secrets - can everything be traced back to the missing painting?

Our second narrator is Dave, a private investigator, who is hired by Alfred's son Philip (after Alfred's death) to track down the painting thief once and for all and bring closure to the family. Having the dual narrators, one from inside the family and an outsider, really does help to give a nice balance to the plot.

In theory, this book is made up of elements that appeal to me (hence why I wanted to read it) - a murder mystery with a touch of a real life figure thrown in - so I thought I'd really enjoy it. But sadly, I didn't. The artistic angle, learning about the Black Paintings, yes, I liked that, and there was a clever little narrative that struck a satisfying balance between the supernatural and a crime thriller. Saying that though, the pace was a little slow and linear in parts, with reveals you could see coming, so there were no great surprises when the story arrived at its conclusion. For me, none of the characters were overtly likable and all seemed a bit shallow, their back-stories were hinted at, but not fleshed out, so it was tricky to care about them. Overall, the writing style lacked finesse, so I just wasn't fully engaged in the story, which was a shame,  as I really did want to like this book more!

Teresa's Grandfather owned a black painting by Goya. Supposedly it put a curse on the family causing all sorts of problems - they are certainly dramatically dysfunctional. It was stolen 15 years ago causing a rift through the family that never healed. However, Teresa has now been summonded back to the house at Owl's Point by her Grandfather.

I knew nothing about Goya's black paintings before I stated this book so that was an interesting addition to the storyline. Personally I felt the author over dramatised the horrific nature of this painting - could a painting really be so shocking that it caused someone to die from a heart attack?

There are numerous twists and turns in this book and for the most part they were well constructed. The plot was pretty solid and I felt everything did make sense and come together in the end. There were a few fight scenes where I lost track of who was fighting who & why but it slotted together again quickly afterwards.

There are two plot devices which I have come to dislike over recent years. One is the use of twins and the mistakes over their identity - there are far more twins in fiction that in reality! Thankfully there wasn't a twin in sight in this book. However, the author did employ the other of my dislikes and that is amnesia. Amnesia is not that common in reality but very common in fiction where the memory conveniently returns at a critical point. In this book, Teresa has epilepsy (nice to see this in fiction particularly as it was well described including the disorientation and fatigue afterwards). When Teresa has a seizure she looses track of reality and some memories of the time around the seizure. This is quite sound and has a good basis in reality. What isn't so sound is that these memories come back at convenient moments - Grrrrrr.

I appreciated the characters in this book. Although many of them weren't that nice most of them managed a redeeming feature. James was quite odd but loved his cousin, Teresa and wanted to take care of her. Audrey had a very damaged character but she was trying to protect her brother, James. In all they were a very dysfunctional family where the therapists could have made a fortune but they weren't all bad.

I did enjoy this book. I found the story flowed well and it was easy to read. There are plenty of well thought out twists & turns for the reader to get their teeth into. I may have considered a five star review had the author not used the cliched amnesia plot device. I will be more than happy to read any other books by this author.

This book was sent to me via Netgalley.