With a Gem-Like Flame: A Novel of Venice and a Lost Masterpiece [Hardcover]

David Adams Cleveland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 10, 2001

Common sense dictates that it simply cannot exist -- the "Leopardi Madonna," a glorious treasure by the fifteenth-century master Santi Raphael. All the reference books and reliable scholarship indicate that the painting was destroyed in 1945, when the Allies bombed a Nazi warehouse filled with looted art. Only now the Madonna has reappeared, it seems, in this stunning, original thriller that uncovers greed and treachery in the rarefied precincts of the art world. Summoned to Venice from America to view the painting, Renaissance scholar and sometime-art dealer Jordan Brooks returns to the city that had enchanted him twenty years before. As he ponders the possibility that a fake was set afire a half century earlier and the authentic work has resurfaced -- or that the actual masterpiece was lost in the conflagration and a magnificent fake has taken its place -- he also contemplates the strange and secret auction which offers him a chance to bid on the painting. Set against the backdrop of Venice in late autumn, when the timeless city's rain-swollen lagoons threaten to swamp all her treasures, the novel limns the path that lands Jordan on the doorstep of his former teacher, Giorgio Sagredo, who has compromised his ideals to sell the Madonna. It leads Jordan, too, into a horde of amoral art dealers eager to make a killing and, more fortuitously, introduces him to Katie, a young American student who has a scent for the truth and a way of turning up at the moment he needs her most.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Never quite coalescing into a full-fledged thriller or mystery, but involving elements of both, this first novel takes on the art world and its Venetian denizens. When a Raphael masterpiece, presumably destroyed in WWII by Allied bombers, resurfaces in the city of canals, it is scheduled to be sold at a private auction. The art world's big agents including a glum Japanese, a sinister Swiss, and a supercilious Brit are understandably excited. Before the sale goes off, however, gallery-owner and scholar Jordan Brooks must determine whether the painting is the original, saved somehow from conflagration during WWII, when it was seized from its owners, an Italian-Jewish family murdered at Auschwitz. And what role is played by a former Nazi officer who knew the original owners? Nonmoneyed art lovers will be shocked to learn that Brooks's lofty research may involve treachery and even murder. Though the tale is slow moving, Cleveland introduces excellent insights into art, old and contemporary, as well as colorful descriptions of a glorious city that is itself a living artwork; love comes into play, too, when the divorced Brooks meets the inevitably nubile grad student, Katie. Cleveland ably contrasts the romantic dream of Venice with today's grittier, commercialized version, dropping names (Dior, Ferragamo, Armani et al.) even faster than bodies. He does manage a few good surprises involving the Raphael and its disposition before indulging in sudden and predictable melodrama.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Art mysteries are hot at the moment, perhaps because they offer the so-called serious reader a more refined version of genre fiction, dead bodies made palatable by the presence of old masters. There are plenty of both in Cleveland's first novel starring art dealer Jordan Miller, who is in Venice to bid on the Leopardi Madonna, a Raphael masterpiece assumed destroyed in World War II. Smelling a fake, Jordan researches the painting with the help of a comely graduate student, exposing an elaborate scam and finding himself in the midst of a bloody finale, which takes place during the city's autumn rainy season. Cleveland does fine with Venice, and the material on Raphael's life and work, though not always successfully incorporated into the action, is fascinating on its own. Where he runs into trouble, however, is with Jordan, whose internal monologues are interminable and whose ability to figure out the byzantine plot is never adequately explained. In the best art mysteries--say, Iain Pears' Jonathan Argyll series--the people are more interesting than the paintings. Here it's the other way around, although the art crowd probably won't mind. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (July 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786708778
• ISBN-13: 978-0786708772
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #671,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars artist's review, November 16, 2004

By 

William Kelley (Florence, Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: With a Gem-Like Flame: A Novel of Venice and a Lost Masterpiece (Hardcover)

This is a great read. It is one of the few books that stays with you long after you're finished. This story appealed to me on several levels. It touches on the beauty and mystery of the art and history of the Renaissance as in the current literary genre of "The Da Vinci Code" and "The Rule of Four." There is a beautifully flowing and sensuous vision of the city of Venice throughout. It's a compilation of intriguing and talented rogues and characters dating from the Italy and Germany of WW II to present day Europe. It's a gut-check morality tale of where greed, ego and pride can lead man in his worldly pursuit of the ultimate "prize." And, finally, there is a good old, intense, passionate, physical and intellectual relationship between Jordan and Katie that is warmly reminiscent of Bogie and Bacall. This book has it all. Read it.
William Kelley, Florence, Italy

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars High praise for Gemlike Flame, December 8, 2001

By 

Telljohann "telljohann" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: With a Gem-Like Flame: A Novel of Venice and a Lost Masterpiece (Hardcover)

Set in atmospheric Venice and tracing the intrigues of international art dealers competing for Rafael's lost "Leopardi Madonna," this first novel by David Adams Cleveland caught my attention immediately. And this suspenseful book far exceeded even my high expectations. Cleveland displays a sophisticated knowledge of artwork and powerfully evokes the WWII period during which the masterpiece was confiscated from an Italian Jewish family. His portrait of Venice convincingly evokes the city's contrasts, and the plot twists are truly surprising. This book should appeal to any discerning reader who loves Venice, mysteries or art! I am planning to give several copies as holiday gifts.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Soaring Visual Images, August 15, 2001

By 

Ann S. Wilberding "swilberding" (Nokomis, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: With a Gem-Like Flame: A Novel of Venice and a Lost Masterpiece (Hardcover)

Cleveland's first novel is a fast paced chase over the bridges and on the canals of Venice which the author obviously knows well. After a wordy start he soon gains his stride with the tale of sleuth and intrigue among the varied players in the private auction of a missing Raphael madonna masterpiece, or is it a perfect forgery? His characters, vehicles for the plot, are not always fleshed out and the reader doesn't necessarily become attached to them, though his Venetian mentor is a stunning exception. Cleveland soars with visual images:"violin melodies pouring like pink confetti," "an oasis in a watery dessert," and "Raindrops began a soft pecking." His reverence for visual beauty is positively contageous; his action is worthy of an Indiana Jones matinee; and his sophistocated yet comprehendible appreciation of art make this a great summer...hmmm... make that weekend read.