An Exquisite Corpse by Helen A. Harrison is a fantastic historical mystery with a touch of noir that does a wonderful job incorporating the real life people and feel of the Surrealist movement in New York during WWII.

The book starts with an explanation of an exquisite corpse and then continues to include interesting facts about the people and time period. I found the short chapters to be perfect because I would get up and go to the computer to find out more about the interesting people and artwork that Harrison had mentioned in the chapter. I think I spent equal amounts of time reading as I did on the computer! You can tell that Harrison really knows what she is talking about.

Now some authors may know a subject really well and give great lectures, but if they tried to write fiction it would be boring, but not Harrison. Her dialogue read how people really talk and the noir elements helped to make this mystery a bit more gritty. The killer was unexpected and helped to add to the realism in the story.

I highly recommend An Exquisite Corpse, and can’t wait to get my hands on book two in The Art of Murder Mysteries, An Accidental Corpse. ( )