Amazon.com Review
The gifted writer Aaron Elkins takes a break from his series about forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver (Twenty Blue Devils was the outing prior to Loot's appearance) to introduce a new sleuth, Boston art expert Ben Revere. Revere is a retired curator who helps the police when he's not supporting lost causes like the Red Sox. The shapely and exciting story begins in April 1945, when a German soldier steals a truckload of already stolen paintings and is killed by the Russians before he can trade them to the Americans for his freedom.
Fifty years later, a Valezquez painting from this bundle of loot arrives at a Boston pawnshop run by a friend of Revere's. A murder during an attempted robbery and a guilty conscience send Revere off on a chase across Europe, where a rich old Viennese count, a Hungarian swindler, and the ubiquitous Russian mafia all offer clues and/or threats regarding the remaining paintings. Revere shares with the best of the fictional world of art detectives (such as Jonathan Gash's Lovejoy and Nicholas Kilmer's Fred Taylor) an obvious love for and knowledge of what they seek. Here's Elkins on Revere's first impressions of the Velazquez:
You knew at once that, despite the quaintness of costume, or trappings, or pose, this was a real person you were looking at--or rather, was looking at you--and you couldn't help feeling that if you could only look at him long enough, or in the right way, you might make a connection, an actual human connection, over all those years.That's why we look at pictures--and read books. --Dick Adler
From Publishers Weekly
April 1945: the German war machine is collapsing, and the Nazis are frantically crowding their stolen art treasures into a secret salt mine in Altaussee, Austria. In the chaos, a truck from one of the convoys disappears. The driver has deserted, hoping to negotiate asylum with the advancing American forces. But a blizzard sets him off course, and he and his loot are captured by a brutal Russian patrol instead. Boston, 50 years later: a gorgeous painting by the Spanish master Velazquez turns up in the pawnshop ("CA$H IN A FLA$H") of the surprisingly prim Simeon Pawlovsky. Suspicious of the thug who brought it in ("a big scar here, half an ear missing, a busted nose"), Simeon calls his friend Ben Revere, a retired art historian and curator who likes baseball and occasionally moonlights for the police. The next day, Simeon is murdered during an attempt to steal the painting. Motivated by guilt and encouraged by Simeon's fiery niece, Revere goes on a whirlwind search for the provenance of the Velazquez and the whereabouts of the rest of the art aboard the missing truck. In the process, Revere is hired by a wealthy, aging count in Vienna, implicated in the murder of an underworld figure in Budapest and chased by a Russian mafia assassin all over Europe. Revere's combination of high intellect and low pretense makes him an engaging sleuth, and Elkin's (Twenty Blue Devils, etc.) cultural and historical details add savor to this engaging, fast-paced novel. Rights: Karpfinger Agency.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
