A black student is shot dead during a demonstration claiming “Beethoven Was Black” in Bonn’s historic Münsterplatz with its majestic monument to the Bonn-born composer. Attending a Beethoven jubilee conference in the city is retired professor turned art crimes detective Megan Crespi with her American colleague and Beethoven expert, Will Meridian. During their symposium on the composer one of the participants is also killed. Who is the assassin or assassins and why do the murders continue? The cast of characters and suspects Megan is confronted with include Bettina Brentano, ambitious conductor of the Bonn Classical Philharmonic, Oskar van der Fresser, founder of the Beethoven und Du Museum in Vienna, Dr. Seide Sammlerin, over-protective director of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Tobias Neidisch, Beethovenhalle night guard with a chip on his shoulder, Dr. Li Shutong, with a singular background relating to Beethoven in China, Leopold Weissknab, white supremacist student studying at Bonn University, Louis van Hoven, a self-declared direct descendant of Ludwig van Beethoven, Clemens Karl von Masuren, beloved conductor of the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, and Takuto Nisemono, conductor and composer once considered “the Beethoven of Japan,” now disgraced but defiant and scheming a come-back.Megan’s pursuit of Beethoven-related criminal activity extends to a cruise ship bound for China and additional deaths. Can justice prevail? Includes Reading Guide.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both books in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press as well as The Fantastic Art of Vienna, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Schiele in Prison. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, extend from Europe to Antarctica to China and are reflected in her Megan Crespi Mystery Series: Killing for Klimt, The Schiele Slaughters, The Kokoschka Capers, The Munch Murders, The Kollwitz Calamities, The Kandinsky Conundrum, and The Mahler Mayhem. All Comini’s scholarly books are available in new editions from Sunstone Press as is the entire Megan Crespi Mystery Series.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-341-6
390 pp.,$34.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-309-6
390 pp.,$26.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-603-4
390 pp.,$3.99

In Vienna, upsetting mishaps occur when a Bruckner/Brahms four-part concert series under the baton of a woman conductor turns deadly.

After visiting the nineteenth-century German/Texan sculptor Elisabet Ney Museum in Austin, art crimes detective Professor Megan Crespi identifies an unknown bust of the young, beardless Johannes Brahms in a local antique store, and happily acquires it. Two days later she speaks on Brahms and the Visual Arts in his birth city of Hamburg. She continues to Vienna where she is to lecture on Gustav Klimt and Music and attend a controversial concert series that juxtaposes Austrian-born Anton Bruckner symphonies with those of German-born Brahms. As partisans bicker, the conductor Agatha Endlich encounters growing threats with violent consequences. Suspects include conductors Brahms-lover Lukas Eifer and Bruckner-fanatic Christian Begeist as well as their devious cohorts. Descendants and ancestors of the world-famous Wittgenstein family of Vienna play a role. After the revelation that Brahms produced a secret work in a genre totally unassociated with him, Megan attempts to discover the score that has been hidden for over one hundred and fifty years. Will she be successful? Includes Readers Guide.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both books in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press as well as The Fantastic Art of Vienna, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Schiele in Prison. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, extend from Europe to Antarctica to China and are reflected in her Megan Crespi Mystery Series: Killing for Klimt, The Schiele Slaughters, The Kokoschka Capers, The Munch Murders, The Kollwitz Calamities, The Kandinsky Conundrum, The Mahler Mayhem and The Beethoven Boomerang. All Comini’s scholarly books are available in new editions from Sunstone Press as is the entire Megan Crespi Mystery Series.

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Email: acomini@smu.edu

Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-439-0
342 pp.,$38.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-372-0
342 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-651-5
342 pp.,$4.99

A moving van filled with eleven Wassily Kandinsky paintings stolen from Munich’s famous Lenbach House Museum during a violent neo-Nazi demonstration is hijacked in Slovakia. Two rival Kandinsky collectors appear to be involved: Igor Rasputin of Odessa, visiting in Munich, and Boris Zima of Moscow, whose agent Raisa Sokolova is keeping tabs on Rasputin. Puzzlingly, the museum adamantly declares there has been no theft, even though its night watchman has been found murdered.

Also visiting Munich is retired art history professor Megan Crespi, slated to give a lecture she titles, curiously enough, “Double Kandinsky.” In between visits to “mad” King Ludwig’s fantasy castles, Megan comes into contact with possible suspects, ranging from Rasputin to Iris and Laszlo Togarassy, owners of Munich’s new The Blue Rider gallery featuring Kandinsky’s works, to Katrina Keller, associate director of the Lenbach. Manipulating events connected with the theft are a young, careless gambler who owns a building behind the Lenbach, two men from the Ukrainian island of Amiinyi—one a computer wizard, the other a science photographer—and their Munich engineer friend Alyksandr Miesel, neo-Nazi leader Walter Krankenhauer, and Detective Dieter Löser.

Crespi’s lecture, including results of state-of-the-art XRF technology, becomes the revelatory preamble to a thrilling denouement that cracks the Kandinsky conundrum.

Includes a Readers Guide.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both books in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press as well as The Fantastic Art of Vienna, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Schiele in Prison. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, also from Sunstone Press, extend from Europe to Antarctica and are reflected in her Megan Crespi Mystery Series: Killing for Klimt, The Schiele Slaughters, The Kokoschka Capers, The Munch Murders, and The Kollwitz Calamities, all published by Sunstone Press.

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Email: acomini@smu.edu

Hardcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-444-4
274 pp.,$38.95

Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-213-6
274 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-542-6
274 pp.,$2.99

In this first in the Megan Crespi Mystery Series, retired art history professor Megan Crespi, an expert on the Viennese artist Gustav Klimt, becomes involved in a race to recover the Secretum, a “shameful, secret panel” stolen from the artist’s studio the night after his death in February of 1918. Her travels, at the behest of New York’s Moderne Galerie Museum, owner of the famed 1907 “golden” Klimt portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, take her from the high desert of Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Switzerland’s Ascona, as well as to New York, Vienna, Helsinki, Paris, Montreal, and Girdwood, Alaska. Megan is shadowed by two different assassins hired by fanatical Günther Winter. Owner of Alaska’s Alpenglow Hotel, he keeps his secret art collection in an annex basement. Several killings occur involving the interested criminal parties and naïve owners of Klimt artworks. Finally setting up a trade—Winter’s Secretum for the golden Adele—Crespi and two colleagues fly to Alaska. They bring with them two crates: one purporting to contain the Adele portrait, and a larger one to receive the Secretum panel. But there, greed leads to unexpected and colossal consequences. Will Megan survive the final killing for Klimt? Includes Readers Guide.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both are now in new editions from Sunstone Press. Her travels, recorded in the memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, extend from Europe to Antarctica and are reflected in this, her first mystery novel.

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Website: http://www.alessandracomini.com
Email: acomini@smu.edu

Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-196-2
266 pp.,$29.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-006-4
266 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-281-4
266 pp.,$2.99

In this third book in the Megan Crespi Mystery Series, a major double portrait by the Viennese Expressionist artist Oskar Kokoschka showing himself with his lover Alma Mahler has been stolen from the Basel Museum in Switzerland. Left in its place is an exact duplicate, except that Alma has been replaced by an unknown woman. Retired professor of art history Megan Crespi, an expert on Viennese art, is called in to help with the investigation. Then, a second theft of fourteen crates of unknown Kokoschka artworks from a Viennese storage vault takes Megan to Vienna. There she meets by accident the mysterious multimillionaire Desdemona Dumba. A stunning anorexic, Desdemona feels it is her role in life to bring Kokoschka’s lost works together and away from public scrutiny. Meanwhile, two individuals, Leo Lang and Bruno Fichte-Mahler, harbor fanatical interest in Kokoschka and go to extreme measures either to desecrate or to protect the artist’s images of Alma. An endangered Megan pursues leads that take her from Basel and Vienna to Berlin and finally to Xenia, Desdemona’s remote islet off the Greek island of Corfu. Includes Readers Guide.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, extend from Europe to Antarctica and are reflected in her second mystery novel in the Megan Crespi Mystery Series, The Schiele Slaughters. It, and the first in the series, Killing for Klimt, were also published by Sunstone Press.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-451-2
248 pp.,$36.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-077-4
248 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-397-2
248 pp.,$2.99

Two monumental granite statues by famed German artist Käthe Kollwitz—the Grieving Parents—have been stolen from a World War I soldiers’ cemetery in Belgium. What could the motive have been for such an unlikely theft? On a visit to the director of the Kollwitz Museum in Cologne, retired art history professor and Kollwitz scholar Megan Crespi is asked to aid in tracking down the robber or robbers. As she pursues clues and visits possible suspects more Kollwitz statues are stolen in Cologne and Berlin. Crespi’s itinerary takes her to the Berlin Kollwitz Museum, Weimar, the Baltic Sea island of Rügen, Greifswald, and finally to the Kollwitz House in Moritzburg. On the way she interacts with physicians Abraham Rückgabe and Iliana Frankel, the just-married couple Monika von Putbus and Akram al-Aljamie, and unscrupulous CEO of Rügen’s asbestos-contaminated Dorotek factory, Reinhold Fromm, collector of dominatrix drawings. We meet possible suspects, Iranian prince Yusri Pahlavi, greedy Lukas Zamann of the Galerie Zamann, and the mysterious “Marie Schmidt,” of Moritzburg, Kollwitz’s final home. All seem to be connected to the spate of Kollwitz thefts. Can Crespi solve these thefts and will the precious artworks be found? An unexpected denouement involving seven persons and two cats gives us the answer.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both books in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press as well as The Fantastic Art of Vienna, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Schiele in Prison. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, also from Sunstone Press, extend from Europe to Antarctica and are reflected in her Megan Crespi Mystery Series: Killing for Klimt, The Schiele Slaughters, The Kokoschka Capers, The Munch Murders, and The Kandinsky Conundrum, all published by Sunstone Press.

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Website: http://www.alessandracomini.com
Email: acomini@smu.edu

Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-446-8
300 pp.,$38.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-157-3
300 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-497-9
300 pp.,$2.99

During a performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Vienna State Opera there is an explosion in the foyer just off the auditorium. Auguste Rodin’s famous 1909 bronze bust of composer/conductor Gustav Mahler has been blown up and a hate-filled note has been left at the scene demanding that there be “no more Jews defiling our culture.” Retired art historian/musicologist Megan Crespi, in Vienna to lecture, is at the performance with her former student, the renowned cellist Egga Streicher, and is asked by her friend, Chief of Police Erich Decker, to help in tracking down the culprit. Soon copy-cat vandalism of Jewish monuments around the city breaks out. Things come to a horrendous climax during a performance of Mahler’s great Second Symphony, the “Resurrection” symphony, but is it the only surprise awaiting Megan Crespi’s dangerous investigation? Includes Readers Guide.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both books in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press as well as The Fantastic Art of Vienna, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Schiele in Prison. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, extend from Europe to Antarctica and are reflected in her Megan Crespi Mystery Series: Killing for Klimt, The Schiele Slaughters, The Kokoschka Capers, The Munch Murders, The Kollwitz Calamities, and The Kandinsky Conundrum, all published by Sunstone Press.

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Website: http://www.alessandracomini.com
Email: acomini@smu.edu

Hardcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-445-1
292 pp.,$36.95

Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-247-1
292 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-567-9
292 pp.,$2.99

The art world is stunned. In the space of a little over a week three Edvard Munch paintings, including the iconic Scream, have been stolen from museums in Oslo and Stockholm. Retired professor of art history Megan Crespi, on vacation in Scandinavia with her little Maltese dog Button and her old friend Lili Holm, is asked to help. In her capacity as Munch specialist, she visits three possible suspects, all major collectors of Munch, and soon finds her life is endangered. Being kidnapped had not been in her plans. Who is responsible? The fanatical Norseliga clan, with its emphasis on Norwegian superiority? The beautiful cosmetics queen, Myrtl Kildahl, who hides her German roots, or the Swedish collector who denies he is the grandson of writer August Strindberg? Pursuit of the truth takes Megan from Copenhagen and Oslo, to Bergen and Trondheim, and finally to Stockholm and the myth-laden island of Runmarö. Megan’s dog adds an element that qualifies him as a detective second only to his mistress. Includes Readers Guide.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both books in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, extend from Europe to Antarctica and are reflected in her fourth mystery novel in the Megan Crespi Mystery Series, The Munch Murders. It, and the first three in the series, Killing for Klimt, The Schiele Slaughters, and The Kokoschka Capers, were also published by Sunstone Press.

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Website: http://www.alessandracomini.com
Email: acomini@smu.edu

Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-192-4
254 pp.,$29.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-103-0
254 pp.,$22.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-448-1
254 pp.,$2.99

Retired art history professor Megan Crespi, an expert on the Expressionist artist Egon Schiele, is called to Vienna to help solve the brutal murder of a museum night watchman whose naked cadaver was propped up in the same pose as the nude self-portrait by Schiele above him. A series of attacks relating to Schiele occur, ranging from “censoring” of his nude figures’ private parts with spray paint to desecration of his burial site. Amid restitution lawsuits and murderous competing gallery owners, Megan’s investigations are endangered by the fanatical Grand Master of a secret sect dedicated to the obliteration of obscenity. Her own life in danger, the twisting Schiele trail leaves multiple corpses in its wake and leads Megan from conniving Vienna to remote Kaliningrad in Russia, to ancient Krumau in Bohemia, and bustling Milan in Italy as she hunts for a possible hidden trove of major Schiele paintings. What she discovers is undreamt of and leaves the Schiele world stunned and covetous. Includes Readers Guide.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country, both now from Sunstone Press. Her travels, recorded in the memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, extend from Europe to Antarctica and are reflected in this, her second mystery novel in the Megan Crespi Mystery Series. The first, Killing for Klimt is also from Sunstone Press.

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Website: http://www.alessandracomini.com
Email: acomini@smu.edu

Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-443-7
264 pp.,$36.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-025-5
264 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-320-0
265 pp.,$2.99

In Switzerland, Germany, and Vienna a spate of grave vandalism, graffiti, and even murder concerning 19th century musicians Clara and Robert Schumann is investigated by Megan Crespi.

Researching for her book on 19th-century virtuoso pianist Clara Schumann and her eight children, Professor Megan Crespi encounters startling hatred or praise for them and for Clara’s composer husband Robert. These strong reactions come in the form of grave vandalism, outrageous graffiti on Schumann museums across Germany, in Switzerland and Vienna, and even murder. Why? Megan’s travel companion is her sister-in-law Susan, a pediatrician whose expertise becomes crucial for the thirteen-year-old Italian child prodigy Stella Scarpauomo, referred to by the press as “the twenty-first-century Clara Schumann.” Disparate characters include three dedicated detectives, two Viennese widows who are founders of the local Clara Schumann Society, and two Schumann museum directors, one helpful, the other easily annoyed. Also involved are a wacky Schumann archivist, a patroness of the arts who refuses to use one of her two surnames, and a brilliant young pianist from Liberia whose promising career has veered from that of performing artist to assistant piano tuner. Will Crespi and the detectives put the dangerous jigsaw puzzle together before further disaster strikes? Includes Readers Guide.

Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini was awarded Austria’s Grand Medal of Honor for her books on Viennese artists Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Her Egon Schiele’s Portraits was nominated for the National Book Award and her The Changing Image of Beethoven is used in classrooms around the country. Both books in new editions are now available from Sunstone Press as well as The Fantastic Art of Vienna, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Schiele in Prison. Comini’s travels, recorded in her memoir, In Passionate Pursuit, extend from Europe to Antarctica to China and are reflected in her Megan Crespi Mystery Series: Killing for Klimt, The Schiele Slaughters, The Kokoschka Capers, The Munch Murders, The Kollwitz Calamities, The Kandinsky Conundrum, The Mahler Mayhem, The Beethoven Boomerang and The Brahms Bust. All Comini’s scholarly books are available in new editions from Sunstone Press as is the entire Megan Crespi Mystery Series.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-589-2
410 pp.,$42.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-379-9
410 pp.,$28.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-672-0
410 pp.,$4.99