The Lost Van Gogh: A Crime Thriller With Historical Elements

 The mystery book club that I attend has three selections every month.  We get selection lists together months in advance so that we have plenty of time to obtain and review them.  Sometimes I notice a title that particularly interests me.  So I get hold of it ASAP and read it.  The Lost Van Gogh  by Jonathan Santlofer is an example of a book club selection that I read early.

The Night Portrait by Laura Morelli is another historical fiction that I've reviewed that has similar themes. See my review here . Both The Lost Van Gogh and The Night Portrait deal with Nazi art theft. They are also both dual period novels. 

 A big difference is that in  The Night Portrait, one of those periods is World War II.  The WWII protagonist is an art conservator. She was preserving Nazi looted art for posterity.  In order for these works to be hanging in contemporary museums or in the homes of 21st century art collectors, there would need to have been someone like her, making sure it survived.  WWII is not one of the periods that Santlofer's protagonists live in.  His characters live in the present or in Van Gogh's late 19th century context.

                                       

                                 

I consider The Lost Van Gogh a crime novel rather than a mystery.  It deals with the theft of Van Gogh's rumored final self portrait.  It's not definitely certain whether it still exists or not.

The contemporary protagonist in The Lost Van Gogh is artist Luke Perrone whose great grandfather was an art thief.  So readers shouldn't be surprised that not all the art referenced in this book was acquired legitimately.  

The first time I saw a Van Gogh painting was probably in New York's Museum of Modern Art.  In fact it may have been The Starry Night  which I associate with Don McLean's song Vincent, a song written in honor of Van Gogh that is often referred to as "Starry Starry Night". You'd think that a 20th century song would not be the first thing that pops into my mind when viewing a 19th century painting, but that is what has happened to me. <lol!>

I normally don't comment on  the practical logistics in a fictional scene, but I was bemused by a character whose hands were tied being able to hold a gun.  I wondered if he was holding the gun in his teeth.  Seriously?!

After reading in The Lost Van Gogh about so many paintings by well known artists having been stolen by the Nazis, I looked up my favorite painting.  It happens to be by Vermeer.  It's called Girl Asleep.  I've seen it many times at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.  When I travel to New York, I like to pay a visit to Girl Asleep.  In the 1696 Vermeer catalog, it was apparently called A Drunken Sleeping Maid at a Table.  This is a example of late 17th century prejudice against people who have to work for a living. Why did the cataloger decide that she was drunk?  I think she was overworked and exhausted.  

Although Santlofer has written series books, The Lost Van Gogh isn't one of them.  It's an independent work which I thought was well written and well researched.

                                        

                                       

Wayward Voyage

When author Anna M. Holmes sent me historical fiction Wayward Voyage, I already knew that it would center on historical female pirate Anne Bonny.  I had read about her fictional equivalent, Fanny Hackabout-Jones , in Fanny by Erica Jong some time ago.  I still haven't read an actual history book about Anne Bonny.  Perhaps that's because she's so much fun to read about in fiction.  I wonder if the real Anne Bonny would be disappointing in comparison.

Maybe she wouldn't be disappointing at all.  I found a biography of Anne Bonny by historian Phillip Thomas Tucker on his website here . I put it on hold. We'll see whether I'll enjoy reading about the real Anne Bonny.

But let's move on to Anna M. Holmes' fictional version of Anne Bonny's story.

 

                                       

                                  

 Wayward Voyage opens on the island of Jamaica in 1720. 

 There was a reference to  methods of abortion which I thought I should bring up for those who think abortion is modern.  A male character protested that "No one has the right to interfere with God's will."  This goes to show that anti-abortionists aren't a modern phenomenon either.

Anne's friend (some say they were lovers) Mary Read, who kept up a convincing male disguise, was a "top man" in this book. This meant she could climb the ship's rigging up to the top and announce "Land ho" when they were nearing land.   I thought this was an impressive skill. 

Anne and Mary aren't idealized.  They had some troubling attitudes including racism which I imagine was fairly typical for the time.

Anne is portrayed as heterosexual.  She was married to pirate captain Jack Rackham, but wasn't very loyal to him.  Mary Read considered Anne untrustworthy.

I don't have any additional remarks in my notes that I thought should be included in a review.  So this will be fairly brief.  I liked this book enough to rate it four stars on Goodreads.

                                        

 

Legacy of the Third Way

This review of  Legacy of the Third Way was requested by the author, Abdul Kundi , in the middle of February.  It took me a little over two weeks to read this book.  It wasn't the book.  It's the slow reading speed that has plagued me in 2024.  I keep on hoping that I'll be able to read more.  Yet I am managing to review this book well before its expected publication date on March 31.  So I'm doing better than I thought.

                                          

Legacy of the Third Way is a near future science fiction novel. Sher Shah, the protagonist, is an American with a Punjabi heritage. He was born in 2020.  This novel is partly an account of Sher's life, and partly an account of the development of  a fictional political party that was established to be a home for those who are disillusioned with the two mainstream political parties in the United States.

Sher eventually entered politics, but he worked as a math instructor in a prison before he started his political career.  This allowed for the introduction of an important character who was an ex-convict.  He had been one of Sher's math students. I liked the fact that the rights of the formerly imprisoned are a topic that's explored in Legacy of the Third Way.

Since this book centrally deals with a political campaign, funding is a significant concern.  By 2050, this future society has coins, but no paper currency. This is only 26 years from now.  The dollar of our contemporary world no longer existed. The currency of Legacy of the Third Way's era has no backing.  The dollar of our era is supposed to be backed by the gold in Fort Knox.

 Agreeing to have a currency without backing in less than thirty years may seem like a radical change in a relatively brief time frame, but author Kundi provides what may be a credible explanation for the abolition of paper currency.  I don't know enough about finances to be sure.

We are told that deficit spending no longer existed, but there is a huge deficit that was created by our past history of deficit spending. One way to get rid of that deficit would be ginormous raises in taxes. Taxes are the source of government income. In that scenario, individuals and companies would go bankrupt because they couldn't afford to pay their taxes. 

The other way to get rid of the deficit is to wipe the slate clean and pretend there is no longer any deficit.  Yet if we wanted to avoid creating a new deficit, many government programs could no longer exist.  There probably wouldn't be any social security or medicare.   Few people could afford to retire without social security, and the health care crisis would be much worse without medicare.  

Could the budget be balanced with major cuts in defense spending?   I sincerely doubt that would even be considered. The Pentagon seems to be sacrosanct.

 How could poor people buy food if the government stopped issuing food stamps because the food stamp program no longer existed?

 There are so many government services that the majority of the people rely on.  The economy would collapse if all these services had to be paid for with the tax funds that the government received.

Sher makes references to meetings in cyberspace rather than meeting face to face.  This is so convenient, but impoverished people with no computers would have to go elsewhere to get free online access--such as a public library.  If all meetings were online, there would be no way for free services to accommodate them all.

There is a lack of finality in the resolution of this book.  So there may be a sequel.  I can't be certain.   

I liked Sher.  I thought he had his heart in the right place.  I decided to give this book a B+.