Tag Archives: Aaron Elkins

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Glancing Light,’ by Aaron Elkins

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In the last few decades the field of art thievery had developed well beyond the crude old days when paintings had usually been stolen and then held for ransom. Now, with the prodigious rewards offered by insurance companies, nasty ransom demands had become unnecessary. You could be more decorous. You merely stole the piece of art, waited awhile, and then turned it in for the insurance reward. All you had to do was come up with some reproachless way of “finding” the object in question and getting the word to the insurance company.

I have read at least one novel by Aaron Elkins before, and I reviewed it favorably. Nevertheless, his name is one of those that remains vaguely familiar in my mind, but I can’t quite place it. Maybe A Glancing Light will help me remember in the future.

The hero of A Glancing Light (this is the second book in a series) is Chris Norgren (extra points for the Scandinavian name!) a curator for a Seattle art museum. Chris is preparing for a trip to Bologna, Italy to arrange for an upcoming exhibition. He gets a request to evaluate a couple paintings that showed up unexpectedly in a shipment for a low-rent art importer. One of the paintings he dismisses as a fake. The other turns out to be one of a group of paintings stolen in a recent major art heist.

Arriving in Italy, Chris is treated to a welcome dinner by a group of friends. Afterward, he sees one of them being attacked by thugs. Chris rushes to help him. He escapes serious injury himself, but his friend is permanently crippled. Chris is certain this has something to do with the aforementioned art heist, but when he goes to see Bologna’s chief artistic crime cop, he’s not impressed with the man – and the feeling is mutual. The information he has to share is dismissed, and he is ordered to stay out of the whole business.

As you can guess, he will not follow that advice. Before he’s done, he’ll have cause to regret the.

The tone of A Glancing Light is (appropriately) fairly light. Chris is not one of those omnipotent amateur detectives who’s always one step ahead of the police, which makes him all the more believable. And the book is educational too.

I very much enjoyed A Glancing Light.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Long Time Coming,’ by Aaron Elkins

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I was weary of the string of brainless mystery/thrillers I’d been reading, so I looked for a change of pace. A novel by Aaron Elkins showed up on an Amazon list. I have no idea where or when I conceived an opinion on Aaron Elkins, but I had an idea he wrote intelligent mysteries. I was not wrong.

In A Long Time Coming, we meet Val Caruso, an assistant curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. Val is preparing for a trip to Milan, to do prep work for a touring exhibit. He gets a call from his friend Esther, who works with a foundation devoted to returning art stolen by the Nazis to its original owners. The case she wants help with now is one they lost. Italian courts have a high view of the rights of good-faith purchasers, and so old Sol Bezzecca has lost his claim to a pair of early Renoir paintings that once hung in his great-grandfather’s home. But the current owner of the paintings is a friend of Val’s. Would it be possible to persuade him to lend the old man one of them, just until he dies, which can’t be long now?

Val agrees to try. He’s helped the foundation out before. In Milan he approaches his friend, art dealer Ulisse Agnello, and proposes the deal. Ulisse says he’s inclined to agree, but there are “complications.”

The complications involve a high-class loan shark and a slightly dubious art restorer. Eventually there will be murder, and Val’s knowledge of Impressionist art will enable him to untangle a devious, ruthless scheme and make an old man happy.

I enjoyed A Long Time Coming quite a lot. The details about the art world and Milanese culture were interesting. The characters were plausible and quirky. The writing was very good, sometimes moving. And it was a great relief to finally read a book where the detective has the sense to listen to his doctors and stay in bed after sustaining a concussion.

I recommend A Long Time Coming. There may have been some bad language, but it left no impression on me.