"This gossipy, epistolary novel is as full of epic characters as the Sistine Chapel ceiling: naughty Médicis, wine-drunk nuns, proto-Marxist painter’s assistants . . . Sinfully fun to read." —Jennifer Wilson, The New Yorker
"[An] entertaining whodunnit . . . stuffed with real-life Renaissance artists behaving badly . . . Sam Taylor’s translation, superb throughout, reaches its apogee in Cellini’s joyously scandalous voice . . . [A] thorough success . . . A dazzling romp." —Steven Poole, The Guardian
"Seriously enjoyable . . . Brightly charismatic . . . From this delectable book’s clamor of voices and versions, Mr. Binet arrives at the truth of the crime." —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
"Atmospheric [and] highly literary . . . Perspective(s) even revives the lost art of the epistolary novel. . . . The mystery [allows Binet] to ask deeper, more elusive questions about human existence." —Talya Zax, The Atlantic
"Collapsing the distance between then and now, the novel emphasizes the very modern stakes of its central question . . . Translated into chatty and colloquial English by Sam Taylor, Binet’s prose crackles with the energy of an art history class, and the author takes an infectious delight in the unique qualities of Renaissance Florence." —Irene Katz Connelly, The Washington Post
"Steeped in art history and underpinned by an aficionado’s delight . . . The novel wears its history lightly, filled as it is with irreverent sendups and winking anachronisms . . . The letters in Perspective(s)— translated with aplomb by Sam Taylor—have a certain giddy perfection . . . What’s moving, in the end, is the novel’s sheer enthusiasm for the act of making art." —Chelsea Leu, The New York Times Book Review
"A delightfully inventive whodunit . . . [Binet's] most brilliant feat is incorporating historical facts and attributes into the framework of his mystery . . . You’ll get lost in this world of political backstabbing and artistic passions." —Cory Oldweiler, The Minnesota Star Tribune
"Saturated with self-aware wit . . . Perspective(s) has an obvious precursor in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose . . . A reminder that metafiction, baroque allegory, erudite citation, genre pillage, and the novel of aesthetic ideas are not just the preserve of a now-distant postmodernism." —Brian Dillon, 4Columns
"Historical fiction doesn’t get much better than this . . . [Perspective(s) has] surprising twists, exciting action and a satisfying denouement. Binet hasn’t short-changed us on the fun, and it doesn’t matter that some of the events are fudged or wholly invented. Binet projects such mastery of the period, his correspondents ranging from proletarian plotters to Catherine de’ Medici, queen of France, that you swallow it all." —George Cochrane, The Telegraph (5/5 stars)
"Seriously silly and immensely enjoyable. . . Compelling . . . It’s one of Binet’s achievements that the convoluted politics of Renaissance Europe underpin the plot of his novel without overshadowing it." —Thomas Jones, London Review of Books
"[Perspective(s)] has all the elements of a classic mystery, put together by a knowing hand that is at once respectful of the genre and dexterous enough to be playful . . . The sublime and the sensational combine as art theory is put to work in the service of catching criminals . . . Racy and enjoyable." —Edward Wilson-Lee, The Times (London)
"[Perspective(s)] blends the postmodern playfulness of Umberto Eco with the vigor of Dashiell Hammett . . . Binet's novels [are] full-blown alternate histories in which he has let loose the reins of his imagination . . . [Binet] is also skilled at fast-paced narrative . . . funny and very gripping." —Magdalena Miecznicka, Financial Times
"A tight, fast-paced, well-managed whodunnit . . . Postmodern playfulness with an underlying message is what we have come to expect from Binet . . . Entertaining . . . Lyrical." —Russell Williams, Times Literary Supplement
"An art-world whodunit set in the agonies and ecstasies of sixteenth-century Florence ... Who gets to look, and from what position? Does any one point of view matter more than any other? These are rich questions for Binet." —Emily Cox, Art in America
"A crackerjack depiction of [Renaissance] political intrigue . . . Binet masterfully weaves together the story’s multiple threads. Readers will be captivated." —Publishers Weekly
