Out West Books offers readers audacious tales of artistic larceny

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Out West Books in Grand Junction recommends both fiction and nonfiction titles that revolve around art theft.

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From the publisher: Egypt, 1936: When anthropology student Charlotte Cross is offered a coveted spot on an archeological dig at Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, she leaps at the opportunity.  

New York, 1978:  Eighteen-year-old Annie Jenkins is thrilled when she lands an opportunity to work for iconic former Vogue fashion editor Diana Vreeland, who’s in the midst of organizing the famous Met Gala.

Meanwhile, Charlotte, now leading a quiet life as the associate curator of the Met’s celebrated Egyptian Art Collection  is consumed with her research on Hathorkare — a rare female pharaoh dismissed by most other Egyptologists as unimportant.

That is, until the night of the Gala. When one of the Egyptian Art Collection’s most valuable artifacts goes missing…and there are signs Hathorkare’s legendary curse might be reawakening.

From Marya Johnston, owner: I had never read any of Fiona Davis’s books, and this certainly won’t be my last. Initially, the subject matter of this book piqued my interest, as my daughter is an Egyptologist for a large museum. Charlotte and Annie’s quest to Egypt to right the wrongs of the past and present make for a terrific read. I loved that Davis emphasized the biases women anthropologists of the 1930s and 1970s had to contend with, as I am sure a lot of this still happens today. The execution of the heist was crazy, but plausible. Never in my life would I have considered that a moth invasion would be a disaster to a museum. This atmospheric novel is just the epitome of great historical fiction.

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From the publisher: For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than 200 heists over nearly eight years — in museums and cathedrals all over Europe — Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than 300 objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion. Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser’s strange and fascinating world.

From Marya Johnston, owner: This book is a case study for the adage that “truth can be stranger than fiction.”  The fact that Breitwieser did not steal art works to resell them should be impetus enough for you to pick this one up. The guy just loved art and felt he was liberating the works from their imprisonment. The ease with which he smuggled great works of art, and the lack of security at most of the museums he looted was just wild, and the accounting of what happened to the artworks after Breitwieser was found was disturbing. In fact, that’s the part of the book I can’t get out of my head. If someone had written this as a novel, it would have been panned. If you like Finkel’s writing, you might also like his book, “The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit.” It’s a winner, too.

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From the publisher: When a daring art heist takes place at the Regency Grand, Molly must reveal long-buried secrets in this intriguing and heartwarming novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of “The Maid” and “The Mystery Guest.” A spirited heist caper and an epic love story, “The Maid’s Secret” is a spell-binding whodunnit that will capture your heart.

From Didi Herald, bookseller: Doubling the fun, “The Maid’s Secret” features not only one heist but two. Molly is a hard working diligent maid. Her love of cleaning and obsession with proper etiquette make her successful as head maid and the manager of special events at the Regency Grand Hotel. She is more interested in making sure the hotel is in perfect shape for the special taping of a TV show in which experts appraise people’s treasures than in discovering if the pieces she has brought in for the special appraisal session for employees have any value. As a child she had loved one of the fancy gewgaws in the grand house her grandmother cleaned and when the house was emptied out, the egg shaped object was rescued from the trash and given to her. She believes the object is worthless but her fiancé  figures it will be a good item for the experts to see.

I liked that the focus wasn’t on the machinations of the thieves but rather on the ordinary people who discover they have a treasure (and what a treasure it is) then lose it, then … I’m not going to give it away!

This Molly the Maid heist book is really ingenious and delightful and it will have readers who haven’t found this gentle mystery series wanting to read the first two.

Type of Story: Review

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