PW Picks: Books of the Week, August 16, 2021 publishersweekly.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from publishersweekly.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
IndieBound The real-life theft of Leonardo da Vinciâs
Mona Lisa from the Louvre on Aug. 21, 1911, by workman Vincenzo Peruggia provides the backdrop for this outstanding caper from Nero Award winner Santlofer (
Anatomy of Fear). In 2019, Luke Perrone, a nontenured university professor of art history and Vincenzoâs descendant, searches the Laurentian library in Florence, Italy, for his great-grandfatherâs journal in the hope of determining whether the stolen
Mona Lisa was replaced by a forgery before its recovery in 1913, and thus ensuring his academic position. John Washington Smith, an ambitious analyst from Interpolâs Art Theft Division, and the mysterious Alexandra Greene join Luke in his effort, and the trio are soon contending with nefarious scholars, forgers, stalkers, a Franciscan monk, and a Russian hit man as the bodies pile up. Details of Florence, Paris, and New York City enhance the twisty plot, as does the insider view of the underground w