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A young editor at a Los Angeles art museum finds herself pulled into the strange and disturbing world of a famous artist who goes missing on the opening night of her exhibition Kim Lord is a giant in the Los Angeles art scene: avant garde figure, feminist icon, and agent provocateur. And her new exhibition "Still Lives" is expected to be just as groundbreaking. Comprised of self-portraits depicting Lord as famous, murdered women--the Black Dahlia, Chandra Levy, Roseann Quinn, and many others--the works are as compelling as they are disturbing, implicating a culture that is too accustomed to violence against women. As L. A. 's richest art patrons pour into the Rocque Museum's opening night, all of the staff, including editor Maggie Richter, hope the event will be big enough to save the historic institution's flailing finances. Except Kim Lord never shows up to her own exhibition. Fear mounts as the hours and days drag on and Lord remains missing. Suspicion falls upon the up-and-coming gallerist Greg Shaw Ferguson, who happens to be Maggie's ex. A rogue's gallery of eccentric art world figures could also have motive for the act, and as Maggie gets drawn into her own investigation of Lord's disappearance, she'll come to suspect all of those closest to her. As bright and blinding as the Los Angeles sunlight, Still Lives is a page-turning exodus into the art world's hall of mirrors, one woman's journey through the belly of an industry filled with money, secrets, failure, and genius. Praise for Motherland . . ". deeply researched, painstakingly written, and, above all, heartfelt. " --New York Times Book Review "Hummel's focus on the concrete, physical experiences of one family is a fine, brave antidote to abstraction, and does what good historical fiction does best: explores what has passed in those undocumented rests between the things we know to be true. " --San Francisco Chronicle (Named a Best Book of the Year)