When Christopher Moore is on book tour, one of his favourite ways to spend his spare time is to visit the local art museum.

Over the years the bestselling author has developed a fascination for Impressionist art in particular, and that interest made its way into the pages of his latest book, Sacre Bleu.

Described as a ‘comedy d’art’, Sacre Bleu takes place in 19th century France and re-imagines Vincent Van Gogh’s demise as murder rather than suicide.

“When you read the account it just makes sense almost immediately. I mean, he finishes the painting Wheat Field With Crows and then shoots himself in the abdomen and walks a mile to his friend Dr. Gachet’s house for help,” Moore tells CityLine.ca. “When you read his letters … this isn’t a stupid man, and he didn’t own a gun. All the circumstances lead to the idea that he probably didn’t shoot himself. Since I finished Sacre Bleu there’s actually been an academic biography of him where two people studied the circumstances of his death and said that he was probably shot by some boys in Auvers that teased him. As soon as I read the account I thought, ‘Well this is the perfect opening for this book.’”

Investigating Van Gogh’s death are fictional protagonist Lucien Lessard, himself an aspiring painter, and his friend Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Along the way they encounter a who’s who of painters from that era, including Monet, Manet, Whistler and Renoir. Toulouse-Lautrec is the comic centre of the book, and in researching the painter’s life for the novel, Moore found his letters surprisingly formal.

“[They were] almost like letters home from college to ask for money,” Moore says. “Where we know he was a bon vivant and lived in brothels and so forth so none of that comes through. You have to balance what [the artists of the time] wrote to their friends and family with what their friends wrote about them, and it gives you an idea of what their character’s like.

“Rather than have [Toulouse-Lautrec] be this morose character that we saw in the 1954 movie Moulin Rouge, it seems he was a pretty happy guy, actually. Because the book was going to be a comedy I needed a vehicle for that and he was a fairly easy character to carry the comedy.”

Moore, whose previous works include Lamb, Fluke, and Bloodsucking Fiends, lived in Paris for two months while writing Sacre Bleu. His temporary digs on Ile de la Cite, a mere 100 yards from Notre Dame, provided ample inspiration.

“It was extraordinary,” he says. “The most amazing place I’ve ever been. To paraphrase the Woody Allen movie, every street and every block is a work of art. You can experience that minute by minute. I’d love to go back, so if I can figure out a reason to go back there for work that would be great.”

The title translates to ‘sacred blue’, a shade of ultramarine made from crushed lapis lazuli. Rare and expensive, the Church in medieval times dictated that any painting of the Virgin Mary must use that particular blue to paint her cloak. In the book, artists have to procure it from a mysterious figure called ‘The Colorman.’

“The nobles used it as a means of status,” Moore explains. “If you commissioned a painting that had ultramarine blue in it, it meant that you had a lot of money.”

The San Francisco-based author admits it was a challenge to infuse his comedic style into this book because of all the documentation available on the time period.

“I’ve done historicals in the past, but they’ve been very sketchy in what you could find out. I’ve done first century Israel, and 13th century mythical England, based on King Lear. It gave me a lot of leeway,” he says. “Whereas late 19th century France, they know what all these guys had for breakfast every day. I had to find as much comedy as I could in the tone of telling the story, and to let the Toulouse-Lautrec character carry it because he was such a wild and crazy guy, for lack of a better term.”

Moore’s favourite museums to visit include the Musee D’Orsay in Paris, and the Chicago Institute of Art. So which artist’s work would Moore go out of his way to see?

“I really like looking at Van Gogh’s paintings, to be honest,” he says. “I love Toulouse-Lautrec’s stuff but Van Gogh is, I think, unparalleled as a genius in painting. Not because of some educated eye but just because of the emotions that come up from looking at his stuff.”

Sacre Bleu is now available in stores and online.