Lazarus's Brush

Award-winning crime writer Matt Rees is the author of A NAME IN BLOOD, a stunning historical crime novel about the mysterious end of the great Italian artist Caravaggio. He offers an introduction to the book through this short story, as well as a sample from the novel and a personal essay about how he came to write A NAME IN BLOOD. In the short story, "Lazarus's Brush," Caravaggio flees the men who seek to kill him and arrives in Sicily. He's commissioned to paint the raising of Lazarus. The result teaches him about his fears of the violence that stalks him -- but more than that it represents a profound change in his artistic technique, inspiring him as an artist in the face of desperate circumstances. Matt Rees's Palestinian crime novels have won a CWA Dagger and his historical novel about the death of the great composer "Mozart's Last Aria" was published to acclaim in 2011. His books are published in 24 languages. He lives in Jerusalem.