Burnt Sienna

Bookworm's Sanctum

Fruit of choice:

Burnt Sienna

Plant responsible:

David Morrell

The Flesh and Gist:

Chase was a man that had a past tainted with bloodied hands while serving the Marines. After he adamantly quitted the armed force, he forayed into a career that utterly had nothing to do with brute and force - an artist. 

Having a flair for painting, especially those of the theme of landscape, he built his reputation. In the past, he used to take orders from others and the orders - regardless of his will or discretion - were to be executed without questions. Now, he vowed he would never be led by the nose. His pride gradually took form and now, he only drew on his own whim and will. 

Nevertheless, a powerful arms dealer - Bellasar - demanded him to put his talent onto the portraits of his wife of unrivalled beauty. Chase, unsurprisingly, refused to work under orders. Both a man of pride refused to take "no" as an answer and hence, sparked the attrition between the two. Bellasar struck first by demolishing the private enclave of Chase on a remote site and closed down his favourite eatery.

Having lost all of the things his treasured, Chase tried to avenge. His friends, Jeb, asked him to join the CIA to beat Bellasar. Initially, Chase refused to cooperate and wanted to deal with his problem by himself. After weighing the circumstances, he finally gave in. 

With some wits and valour, he got to meet up with Bellasar and agreed to draw the portraits. Chase's ulterior motive was to find evidence of Bellasar's wrongdoing and rescue the damsel in distress - though the damsel - Bellasar's wife - had no idea of her imminent distress. Jeb revealed that everytime Bellasar had his wife painted, she died. Bellasar had 3 wives before Sienna - his current one. 

As Chase managed to get close to Sienna and earned her trust. He also found out Bellasar's big secret in his fortress - biological weapon. However, he didn't inform Sienna about it. However, he had graver things for Sienna. He told Sienna about the ill fate awaiting her. She confirmed Chase's warning when she entered a secret room where the portraits are hung. Along with the portraits were something more chilling - the photographs of a girl that looked like herself. In fact, all the 3 late wives of Bellasar looked the same - looked VERY MUCH LIKE SIENNA. No, they ALL looked the same like the girl in the photos - Christina, Bellasar's sister. Later, Sienna, Chase and Jeb learnt that Christina was a lover of Bellasar, despite their relationship. Christina died after she fell from a balcony of a hotel, allegedly of an accident as she doped too much. They got to know that Christina had a lot of partners besides Bellasar and Bellasar went out of control and he killed her. It seemed that Bellasar wanted to find women who looked like his sister. He treated them like trophies of collection.

Chase took Sienna away from the fortress of Bellasar and encountered resistance from Bellasar throughout their escape. Jeb and CIA couldn't get in touch with Chase and assume that Chase was dead. When CIA caught up with Sienna and Chase - now lovers - their secret makeshift location was found out by Bellasar. Initially, all of them were suspicious. Later, it was learnt that there was a mole in CIA that had connection to Bellasar. 

Finally, Chase and Jeb managed to penetrate Bellasar's fortress and killed him - without the orders of the Agency since Jeb's superior was the mole himself. However, before Bellasar's death, he infected Sienna with a modified small pox virus - ingredient that he intended to use as a bioweapon. Fortunately, Sienna was saved. Chase and Sienna lived in where Sienna's parents had their honeymoon - Siena in Italy.

Review:

The plot is nice and it has lots of suspense and unanswered mysterious earlier in the story, such as the death of wives after Bellasar had them painted and the mole in CIA. Worth reading.