In July 1890, Vincent van Gogh went into a cornfield and shot himself. Or did he

Vincent’s friends, baker-turned-painter Lucien Lessard and bon vivant Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, have their doubts. Now they’re determined to answer the questions surrounding van Gogh’s untimely death—like who was the crooked little “color man” Vincent claimed was stalking him across France . . . and why had the painter recently become deathly afraid of a certain shade of blue Ooh la la, quelle surprise, and zut alors, what follows is a surreal odyssey and brothel-crawl deep into the art world of late-nineteenth-century Paris, as the one, the only, Christopher Moore cooks up a delectable confection of intrigue, passion, and art history . . . with cancan girls, baguettes, and fine French cognac thrown in for good measure.