Fri 19 Jun 2009
ADRIANNE BYRD – If You Dare. Harper Torch, paperback original; 1st printing, August 2004.
If there’s one kind of caper novel that I like to read, it’s one that takes place in the world of art. I’m not sure why, as the kinds of social circles the protagonists in such novels travel in are those which are way above my head. Or is that the attraction?
Blue Smoke and Murder, by Elizabeth Lowell, which I reviewed here not too long ago, was one such novel, and If You Dare is another. Or I thought it was when I bought it, almost five years ago, and again when I finally read it, sometime last week.
Billed as a Romantic Suspense novel, it turned out to be more highly oriented toward the Romantic end of the scale, and Steamy Romance at that, then it did the Suspense portion of the billing.
Damien Black is one half of the tango – he’s a professional art thief – and the unbelievably beautiful Angel Lafonte is the other – she’s the new director at an Atlanta museum, although he does not know that when he switches cell phones on her at a gathering where first they meet, and he’s willing to turn down the job he was hired for (steal from her new place of work) when he does.
It’s an interesting way to make sure you meet a lady again, that’s for sure, and the relationship between them heats up rapidly from there, with all of the usual complications. But in spite of all the plans, all of the hints and all of the talk, there is only one art theft that takes place, and that’s offstage, and we never get to see any of the actual operation itself.
And that’s what I was waiting for – and didn’t get – but according to those who reviewed If You Dare on Amazon, Ms. Byrd certainly delivered the goods in terms of what her real audience was looking for. Did I say Steamy Romance?
There are a couple or three decent twists in the storyline, but while the author’s readers having been asking for a sequel (there hasn’t been one), I didn’t find anything solid enough in this effervescently light souffle to tempt me back – not without checking the merchandise more thoroughly next time.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
There are vast numbers of comic book stories set in museums, planetariums, or world’s fair type expositions. These places are all intensely interesting. They also resemble the comics medium itself, in that they contain both pictures and words.
Lots of tales by Van Dine and his followers are in museums, galleries, aquariuams, pet shows, rare book and print shops and the like. These venues do indeed fascinate both authors and readers.
Perhaps the source of why art heist capers are interesting relates to the above.
June 19th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Yes, I remember lots of early Batman stories in which art galleries and museums are robbed, sometimes by the Joker, other times by ordinary gangs of criminals. Fun stuff, indeed.
I think, though, that my fascination for museum and high-profile jewelry thefts comes from the movies, starting for me personally with THE ASPHALT JUNGLE. But there were many that came later, like RIFIFI and TOPKAPI, not to mention the more recent ENTRAPMENT, and I’m sure many others that came earlier.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Many of the books of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child in the review just before this are set in the New York Museum of Natural History where Preston once worked (see his book Dinosaur in the Attic), and to the list of museums and art galleries I would add libraries.
I think part of the fun lies in getting to go behind the exhibits into the forbidden and mysterious areas, and of course in comic books the visual elements were a great attraction for staging dramatic scenes. Theaters are also popular for much the same reason. Those setting are popular in movies too for the same reason.
Elizabeth Peter’s Vicki Bliss books involve museum curator Bliss and her boyfriend professional art thief John Smith. Then there was Richard Condon’s The Oldest Confession (a mediocre film as The Happy Thieves) about a heist of Spain’s Prada; William McGivern’s Caper of the Golden Bulls about the theft of a religous relic and artifact, and recently Richard Doetsch’s books about master thief Michael St. Pierre The Thieves of Heaven and The Thieves of Faith taking on the Vatican and Kremlin respectively. Even The Da Vinci code opens with murder at the Louvre.
Probably all goes back to primitive man and his fear and respect for places of the dead and their things, an atavistic throwback to mystery and the unknown that is hardwired in all our fundamental crocodile brains. Anyway, it’s a setting I find hard to resist whether its something ‘orrible stalking in the shadows, a clever caper, or plain old murder among the exhibits or the stacks.
June 21st, 2009 at 8:18 pm
[…] even though the second half of the film is one of those grand high-stakes art theft movies I was talking about regarding crime caper fiction not so long […]