Christopher Moore is a chameleon of comic fantasy. His novels typically are about ordinary people who get into extraordinary situations of historical significance or supernatural wonder: vampires in Bloodsucking Fiends, the grim reaper in A Dirty Job, even Jesus’ best friend in Lamb. Moore’s newest novel, Sacre Bleu , is another genre shift, a supernatural murder-mystery draped in a lovingly inaccurate art-history lesson. It is historical fiction in that it plays fast and loose with details to craft a thoroughly entertaining plot full of whimsy.

    Set primarily in Paris during the Post- Impressionist era, Sacre Bleu centers on Lucien Lessard, a baker, aspiring painter, and best friend of Henri Toulouse- Lautrec. Lessard’s great love and muse, Juliette, coincides a bit too conveniently with the news of Vincent Van Gogh’s mysterious death, Henri and Lucien get tangled up in a great mystery of just how desperate, starving painted produced a tremendous catalogue of masterpieces, most of them with a striking tint of blue.
    In Sacre Bleu the object is a shade of blue paint with seemingly mystical abilities that has been a part of art’s greatest masterpieces for centuries. The Colorman, a crippled but persistent salesman, the paint or sacred blue affects artists in strange ways: they lose track of large amounts of time, create scores of painting but do not remember painting them, and are able to recount journeys to faraway lands that make them appear entirely crazy to their friends. Moore brings together a farfetched fictional tribute to the color blue, Juliette’s supernatural origins, and Lucien’s desperate want to become a great painter in a way that will infuriate art scholars, but thrill most other readers.

    Nearly all of the major Impressionist artists are included in the novel; Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoi, Degas, Cezanne, Bazille, and Morisot who are all discussed and parts of their art appear in the book. Post- Impressionist artist are included as well, with Gauguin and Seurat joining Van Gogh, Moore even includes references to Picasso, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Oscar Wilde, the last of which offers a sly hint to the novel’s deeper mystery.

    The only thing that some readers may dislike about the novel is Moore’s depiction of the artists. Moore’s characters talk about sex with less than thrilling vocabulary like “bonk” making great painters and idols sounding like juvenile schoolboys. Vulgar, modern voices and obsessive bravado overpower Lessard, Lautrec, and The Colorman, unlike the more complex diction in other novels by Moore. Also disappointing is that Juliette, the great muse, and her shades are powerful women but are always in service of men. She inspires the work but does not control, a precursor to Cameron Crowe’s Band-Aids in Almost Famous, valuable for beauty but nothing else. Sacre Bleu is captivating and Moore breaks down art history only to build it back up in a comic tuned for fun.