This book had such an amazing synopsis I couldn't wait to read it! But I was so disappointed when I couldn't get a feel for it when I started it. It just wasn't a book for me.

Couldn't fully get into this book, not my cup of tea, but still very competent writing and compelling plot. I can't give a detailed review, because I never managed to finish reading it.

Enjoyed this mystery of a completely dysfunctional family. The mystery of the Black painting of Goya as an element of the narrative could have used a bit more background.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

I was intrigued by the summary and how the book revolved a painting by Goya. I also like the creepy artwork on the cover. The book revolves around a piece of art by Goya that causes madness or death upon viewing. When their grandfather summons his grandchildren, they find him dead and staring at the wall where the painting once hung. The cousins try to find out what happened to the painting and more importantly to their grandfather.

The model for the defining dysfunctional family...

This book reminded me of so many gothic mysteries that were popular years ago. I used to read them and enjoy them but in this case, the story just felt dated.

Brooding mansion, dead patriarch, a missing (possibly supernatural) painting, a slew of kooky relatives, and oh yes, the reading of the will - all are pretty common components of gothic mysteries.

The story was okay. I didn't come across many surprises. It was rather wordy and I found myself skimming through quite a few parts of the book. So it's an okay story but not one I foresee re-reading in the future.

I received this book from Hanover Square Press through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.

An intriguing mystery full of wild family dynamics. I really liked the art history and the mythology of Goya's "black paintings" and the demonic portrait - this gave the book a unique twist. It was a pretty quick read and kept my attention throughout. I do wish the ends hadn't been tied up quite so neatly at the end, as I like when mysteries leave a bit more mystery to think about after it's over.

The characters and premise were interesting, but the plot lacked the intrigue necessary for me to keep reading. Sorry for the inconvenience.

An obscure Goya self-portrait is at the center of The Black Painting and the Morse family, who owns it. Or did until it was stolen after which time the family fractured amidst distrust and dysfuntion. Now with their grandfather dead under mysterious circumstances, cousins Teresa, James, Audrey, and Kenny are brought back together for the first time in a decade and things get complicated fast. Too complicated. I finished because it’s a mystery and I wanted to know whodunit, but got the sense that Olson decided the murderer at the last minute by throwing a dart at the list of characters.

This was a Did Not Finish for me unfortunately. I got about 1/4 of the way through before finally admitting this book was not for me. The first few chapters were okay, and somewhat intriguing, but once the private investigator entered the picture, things got very confusing and the writing style got very rambly.

An all round ok read which was interesting but not memorable. A psych thriller that was not really psychological or very thrilling, however I did read it through to the end to make sure I was right, that the painting had been hidden in the not so secret hiding place by one of the family. A family who were all deeply tainted by a psychological flaw that ran throughout all the blood relatives and were affected by too much money and greed.

It started off ok but then I found that I had to keep going back to make sure about who was who, eventually started speed reading to the end to check who actually did it. I did not feel that any of the characters were engaging or real, which led me to not being particularly interested in who actually did it or why.

What a great premise, right? Unfortunately, the actual story failed to live up to it. 

The story itself had all the makings to be great. You have a painting that contains a demon in it, and this painting is stolen. The owner of the painting, Teresa's grandfather, is found dead with a look of horror on his face. And everyone in the family wants to find this painting because of its wealth - and because of the powers it is rumored to hold. The problem with the story, however, is the plot doesn't really stick to the script. It meanders and flows in so many different directions that it is hard to keep track. I don't care about any of the other side plots, I just want to know what is going on with this painting! It was so frustrating to read this novel because I never got the information or the story I wanted.

There were also a lot of characters. As in, way too many. There was nothing to really set any of them apart, and there was just so many names being dropped with no proper development that they all melded into one. It almost felt like I was experiencing whiplash, what with the sheer volume of characters and character interactions that were present in this novel. This is what happens when a story doesn't have any character development whatsoever - and it was an experience I do not want to ever repeat. 

As I'm writing this review, I feel quite sad. This novel could have been so good. And I don't want to bash the author's efforts to write and publish a book. But there was no redeeming quality about this book. There was no effort made to keep the plot concise and interesting. There was absolutely no character development, leaving the reader swamped by the sheer number of players in this book. It was just not a good book. For those reasons, I'm giving this a 1/5 stars.

This felt like a pretty formulaic thriller. Creepy house, theft of an odd item, mysterious death, greedy family, secrets, people who can't be trusted... most of the cliches are there. But the description intrigued me, which is why I was disappointed. Because of the story behind the stolen painting, I was hoping for a little more of the paranormal or demonic. By the time they get around to explaining the painting it's a bit of a letdown. And the characters, including the protagonist, weren't likable or very developed so it was hard to actually care what was going on. If you like your thrillers to meander without much of a payoff, this might be for you.

If Agatha Christie Had Written "The Fall of the House of Usher"

This was atmospheric and well-written in a modern-Gothic-literary style. It's a "psychological thriller" in the sense that every single character could have benefited from psychotherapy. But even though I'm usually deeply uninterested in such books, this one had such a nice handle on dark moodiness, such nutsy characters, and so much lurking in the gloom that I had to keep going with it. Taking a cue from lots of other comments, I read the first quarter of the book closely in order to get all of the characters and the main plot threads, cheat-skimmed the middle, and then cut to the final fifty pages for all of the revelations, solutions, resolutions, recriminations and gunfire. It was a fun ride.

You start with ten little Indians. Four cousins at the bottom. Next up, three siblings who are parents to various combinations of the cousins. Then Grandpa, who dies in the first chapter and whose life through flashbacks and who's death now still leaves him a major character. Add a mysterious housekeeper, a psycho handyman, and a befuddled detective, and off you go. The macguffin here is a Goya painting that's so dark and disturbing, and maybe demonic, that it drives observers mad. It was stolen years ago and everyone thinks everyone else took it. And Grandpa died with a terrified look on his face and his body pointed at the place on the wall where the Goya hung before it was stolen. How and why Grandpa died, why he wanted to see the cousins that same day, who stole the painting originally, where the painting is now, and whether there is any more wine in the cellar, are the pressing questions that are all answered in the end.

Our characters are, respectively, neurasthenic, closeted, alcoholic, controlling, fragile, deceitful, bipolar, devious, murderous, amorous, and aggressively mean spirited. They are subject to nightmares, seizures, migraines, blackouts, tremors, delirium, flashbacks and debilitating shame. Come on! And there's a demon in the painting? This was a hoot.

Anyway, this really was very well written - the house, the doomsday mood, the creepy Goya angle, the wildly dysfunctional and damaged characters. Even during the early setup I enjoyed the little throwaway lines and observations, and dark asides, and insulting bits of conversation that set the tone so well. Once everything was in place the ending screamed along, with a neat revelation on every other page, so there was a wild payoff instead of a sigh or whimper. Bottom line? Was it a pleasure? Yeah, I'm guilty.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

I love it when a plot is not predictable and this book kept me guessing. Good Work! The story hinges on the messed up members of a dysfunctional family. Their characters, motives and relationships were believable. The story was particularly good at noting how the perceptions from childhood may be far from reality.

Family secrets, creepy old house, dead grandfather, and a stolen painting. If any of these things are intriguing you will enjoy this novel. I'm hoping its the first in a series as I really liked the detective character. While not earth shattering in plot, the characters were well developed and the story kept me guessing. A good old fashioned mystery is what this was and that is always a good thing to read.

This started off with great promise and for the longest time felt like it was going to be a mash-up of a Agatha Christie who-dunnit and a Barbara Michaels gothic romance. It had all those elements going, including a family gathering after the death of their rich patriarch and a creepy old house.

I breezed through the first half and then the story started to spin in circles, the same characters and questions and situations appearing over and over again. The characters were rather two dimensional and the madness and dysfunction became redundant by halfway, plus the premise of the “mystery” was rather flimsy. Teresa was the only one in the whole Morse family that I found sympathetic and the rest were pathetic.

When a book has this many characters I have to ask myself, whose story is it? I still don’t have an answer for that. Perhaps the story belongs to conspicuous wealth and greed? That being said, it was a quick read and you could easily finish it in an afternoon rather than watching yet another football game.

This is a mystery story full of interesting and unusual characters. Each of the players has flaws that make them real and dramatically enhance the story. The mystery revolves around the disappearance of a self-portrait of Goya that is believed to contain the spirit of a demon. From the beginning the action is intense and unrelenting as various relatives of the family patriarch gather after his strange death in his study. His friends and family respond according to their individual issues, and all become involved in fighting for his estate. The descriptions are spot on, and add to the overall feeling of the story. As the individual issues affecting each character become manifest, more and more of what happened on the day the painting vanished becomes known. The explanation and the ending are almost painful, yet the book finishes on a satisfying note. I could read it again.

Can paintings be possessed? The family at the center of this story thinks so. They’ve been haunted by a Goya painting for years, and blame it for the horrible things that have happened in their lives. Goya’s work *is* startling in its rawness but it’s the evil perpetrated by the living that startles me the most. Good book....

I’ve been in the mood for something different lately and thought a good mystery might do the trick. I haven’t read any works by Neil Olson, but the unique cover caught my eye and after reading the synopsis, this looked to be the perfect book for me. I always enjoy reading stories dealing with art, and how could you go wrong with a stolen painting rumored to have demons? 'The Black Painting' is a rather mysterious story of a highly dysfunctional family seeking truth in both Alfred Morse’s death and his missing Goya painting, stolen years ago and supposedly at the root of the family’s demise.

Olson definitely created some very unique and complex characters in this story. Each of the family members were all so intriguing and strange, and all had their own tale of a very complicated relationship with their grandfather. The story was mostly told from Teresa’s perspective, but also by Dave, the investigator from the original theft of the painting years ago and brought back onto the case after Alfred’s death by his son, Philip, to finally find the culprit. As the main characters in the story, Teresa and Dave were pretty humdrum and odd, but it was interesting to see the different perspectives from one of the family members along with an outsider’s point of view. It really wasn’t until they teamed up towards the end that they really came to life for me.

There were a lot of details surrounding all of the characters and how their individual roles fit into this complex story. They were amusing, and although I did enjoy the banter between them, I really struggled with feeling a connection with them. A lot of the true character depth came to fruition towards the end of the story, which didn’t allow for much time to find them relatable or establish many real feelings about them either way. I think that more character development with some of the key characters earlier on would have definitely helped with my indifference towards them.

The mystery behind the painting and the family was very intriguing, and I really wanted to know the answers from the beginning to the end. Olson did a really good job at creating this complex storyline, and I really liked the story itself. However, I’m not 100% sure that he conveyed it very clearly to the reader. There were moments where I felt really excited and into the story, and then it just seemed rather lackluster. The pace was a bit slow, and the storyline was choppy and confusing to follow at times. I would suggest that some of this was due to the formatting, which was distracting and took away from the overall flow of the story. Although there wasn’t much romance, the few sexy scenes were also a bit odd, as I found myself a few pages into one and didn’t even realize I was in one at all!

'The Black Painting' was definitely an interesting read, and the ending was one that I would not have guessed. I just feel like overall, the story had some loose ends and needed a bit more polish to make it shine. It had a lot of potential and truly deserved it!

3 Stars for me!