The Art Thief
Paris, Rome, and London are the settings for Noah Charney’s first novel, and the intrigue these cities imply gracefully shades his story of the theft of a number of valuable art pieces stolen from the cities’ embrace. In Rome, a Caravaggio alter piece disappears under the nose of its attentive, though weary, priest. In Paris, a famous painting is mysteriously missing from the basement archives of a society that treasures every piece of art produced by a single artist—Kasimir Malevich. The National Gallery of Modern Art in London has its security system tested and hacked into as their security staff repeatedly attempts to foil the efforts.
Three separate investigative teams are put to work and it is here that Charney creates a colorful cast of characters. His Parisian Inspector Bizot is joined in his efforts by a delightful character, appropriately named Lesgourges, who shares and enjoys his gluttonous indulgences of French cuisine with Bizot, as much as he does the intrigue of a good mystery. To their aid comes Genevieve Delacloche, herself holding a colorful past. In Italy, an umbrella-bearing and suit-clad Gabriel Coffin, a well-known art investigator, immediately observes a clue that the local police have disregarded. In London, Inspector Harry Wickenden of Scotland Yard works to recapture a painting just purchased at auction for a coffer emptying expense.
From the seats of a well-known auction house, through the halls and bowels of a famous museum; from quaint apartments to private galleries and the clandestine corners where art is secretly offered to those with means, Charney’s characters follow a trail of clues that confound and confuse, keeping the reader attentive until the last page.
Best of all is the accurate information that Noah Charney offers in the telling of his story. Holding degrees in art history—one from Cambridge University—he is also the founding director of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.
Through one of his characters provides us this gem: “Disguised symbolism allows paintings to be read, like books, but first you must understand the code. It is a riddle waiting to be unlocked.” In explanation of how to identify certain saints in religious paintings, another of his characters, an educator, explains, “How was Saint Lawrence killed? …He was shot full of arrows, but he did not die, miraculously, so he was later clubbed to death, but he is traditionally shown with arrows sticking out of him. This symbolism is what we call iconography. You can begin to associate a certain saint with a certain object, so that the object can act as a stand-in for the saint, or as an identity badge.”
Entertaining, intriguing, and educating—Charney provides an impressive debut work.
An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England
Sam Pulsifer went to jail for setting fire to Emily Dickinson’s home—and for killing the two people who were inside as the house burned to the ground. Ten years later, at 28, he walked back out into the world and began a new life. The problem was, his old life lurked in the shadows. When the son of the couple killed in the fire comes looking for Sam, the shadows no longer hide his past—and years later, when the homes of other literary well-knowns begin to blacken in flames, it is only logical that Sam fall under suspicion once again. But this time he isn’t involved—or at least isn’t the one setting the fires.
Now out of college, married, and a father, he finds himself on the hunt for the arsonist who is trying to torch his new life. But being innocent of the later fires doesn’t make him innocent, and it seems that sins in Sam’s life have a way of sweeping around and burning him back, much like the flames of his first fire.
A serious novel, tinged with hilarity, Brock Clarke offers An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England as a reminder that life and honesty, love and truth, are sometimes not what they appear to be.