The Last Mona Lisa by Jonathan Santlofer

Sourcebooks Landmark, 400 pages, $16.99

Florence, Italy, is one of my favorite places. Its history, its poetry, its politics, its drama, its beauty! Florence has cried out to other authors to place their books in its heart. Santlofer also heard the cry. It takes his protagonist, Luke Perrone, an American artist and art history teacher, a while to succumb to Florence’s spell, because he has other things to do. He has come to Florence to find out more about his great-grandfather, a man who stole the Mona Lisa about a hundred years ago.

Italian Vincenzo Peruggia has settled in Paris with the love of his life, Simone, who is expecting their child. It is 1911 and Vincenzo is poor. Simone, also an artist, cannot work. Vincenzo has obtained an ill-paying position at the Louvre. One of his last tasks before he steals the Mona Lisa is to build a sneeze-box for it. I saw the modern version of that sneeze-box a few years ago in the Louvre, and it was a sad and sorry thing. We must protect our treasures from the people who would admire but also touch, deface, and diminish them.* (Stonehenge, too, has recently been imprisoned for its own protection.) 

Why did Vincenzo steal the Mona Lisa? Luke wants to know and that is why he is in Florence. Sidestepping a couple of dead bodies, he tracks down the journal belonging to his great-grandfather and begins the process of translating it. While in a small library working on his research, he meets the friendly Alex(andra) Greene. She is interested — far too interested — in his research. Luke no doubt thinks it’s his allure and suave intellectual mastery of Renaissance art history. Somewhere in there, Luke realizes he is being stalked by at least one shadowy figure. That figure turns out to be a rogue Interpol agent who wants to learn if there is an art theft ring and has decided Luke may be his best lead. The agent proves to be right: Luke may be a poor innocent, but he is a lightening rod for intrigue. Luke doesn’t even cotton to yet another shadowy figure who may be following him or one of the other people he has met in his investigation. Whatever, there are more dead bodies.

There were so many elements in Santlofer’s story I enjoyed: the setting (of course), touches reminiscent of the “Da Vinci Code” (but no true puzzles), a heist, a desperate Interpol agent, a ruthless henchman. But in the end, it didn’t quite gel for me. Luke was pretty pathetic and at times I questioned whether he really knew anything about art.**

Luke falls in love at first sight. Seriously, at first sight, because he doesn’t really get to talk to or know Alex before he is smitten. Alex takes a little longer, but not much. This sounds more like a book from the 1950s or 60s. The romance is fraught, tedious, and bereft of any intelligence.

I did love the heist, though. I mentally wept at the operatic story of Vincenzo Peruggia. Now there's a love story! Curses, you vile and venal rich people who don’t believe in sharing! 

“The Last Mona Lisa” was worth the read for the description (eventually) of Florence and its art and the heist. 

*That’s why we can’t have nice things.

**At one point, a police artist is doing a rendering using Luke’s description. “That’s him. How did you do that?” Luke asks. Um. He’s an artist. You’re an artist. Did you really need to ask that?

The Wonder Test by Michelle Richmond

Atlantic Monthly Press, 448 pages, $25.99

In so many ways “The Wonder Test” was my idea of a perfect book. It had a propulsive main story, it had quirky asides, it had a strong lead character, it had little and big stories. I’ll let you in on the bottom line early: I’ve awarded this book an MBTB star!

Lina Connerly is on leave from the FBI as a spy/profiler. (Maybe not the FBI per se, but a shadowy organization with international interests Richmond calls the FBI.) Her husband died not long before the book starts. She pulled up roots from New York City and moved herself and her 15-year-old son, Rory, to Greenfield, California, south of San Francisco, in the valley of the tech industry. Lina grew up in a town close by but a few median pay levels down. She resisted the urge to move back to where her father eventually dropped anchor, in an area of Greenfield full of the rich and the very rich. (Lina’s father bought early, did his own renovation, and hung on to his property.) He and Lina’s husband died within a three-month period, leaving Lina and Rory unable to process their loss.

Lina had a civil servant’s salary and without her husband’s income, she realized NYC would not have been an easy choice anyway. The economy was not easier in California, however, since the thirst for land felt by people made rich by the tech industry pushed up home values. As Lina weeds out her father’s stuff, she must consider the feasibility of selling his home.

Rory is enrolled in the local public school and immediately becomes slotted into the school’s only curriculum for sophomores, a teaching to the test in extremis. The Wonder Test is held nationwide for high school sophomores. It is especially a BFD for the aggressive and assertive school community. They have had the best tests scores, the best students, the best families, the best results over the past few years, especially thanks to the new school board superintendent, Kobayashi. (Just Kobayashi.) There is a “Stepford Wives” vibe.

Rory has no trouble with the intense studying. Sophomores must practice answering profound, intellectually provocative questions that delve deeply into science, history, philosophy, dialectics, and ethics. The start of each chapter of Richmond’s book has what appears to be a sample question. For instance:

Assuming the universe is always expanding, at what point does it become less likely that you will find your lost keys by continuing to look for them? Diagram and discuss.

Or:

Ranchers in Wyoming, tired of losing sheep to wild coyotes, implemented an aggressive plan to cull the coyote population. Ten years later, after dozens of successful hunts and hundreds of kills, the coyote population is more than an order of magnitude larger than before the slaughter. In a 750-word essay, discuss the folly of conventional wisdom and the power of expecting the unexpected.

Almost every question had me trolling through Google to see what the heck the question was even asking.

Then there is the central mystery. Soon Lina is aware that last year a boy from the school disappeared for a few days. He was found naked, confused, and emaciated on a nearby beach. The year before, twins similarly disappeared. They, too, re-appeared after a few days. Although she is on hiatus — not just because her husband and father died, but also because “something” happened at work that shook her up — Lina cannot help but try to discover what happened to the boy, Gray Stafford. Even though he returned alive, he has become subdued and disinclined to socialize, and does not want to talk about what happened to him. 

Almost immediately upon arriving in the area, Lina notices a distinguished man with a French accent and manner. He turns out to be a diplomat. Lina’s antenna quivers and she asks Rory to see if there is a French student at school. Rory goes above and beyond and before long, Caroline, the diplomat’s daughter, is Rory’s girlfriend. 

Lina receives more input that all is not as it seems in her new community. There are strange people, strange events, undercurrents. What is going on? Why does it make people uncomfortable when she seeks information about Gray?

At the same time her investigative nose begins to twitch, Lina realizes she must face how she feels about the work she left abruptly behind. Inevitably, she needs the tradecraft and assets of her old life, and her two worlds begin to collide.

What annoyed me in reading Caroline B. Cooney’s book, “The Grandmother Plot” — too much going on, too many people, too many little plots, not enough synthesis — has the opposite effect on me here. In “The Wonder Test,” there are many characters, many little stories, many sidebars without obvious relevance, but they head in the same direction, with the goal of uncovering the mystery of Greenfield, California, and it was grand.

There is much to see and do in “The Wonder Test.” MBTB star!

The Grandmother Plot by Caroline B. Cooney

Poisoned Pen Press, 288 pages, $16.99

Yes, this book is by THAT Caroline B. Cooney, the author of “The Face on the Milk Carton.”

Author Cooney has created a cozy mystery with some outstanding parts and some misfires. She deftly depicts the sadness of people dealing with loved ones who have dementia, of having them in assisted care, of being forgotten by them as they wander in the haze of their dementia.

Cooney has also created some really interesting characters. Laura is a musician. She has a few pianos, a pipe organ, and smashed brass (who knew there was such a thing) in her collection. She also has a beloved aunt in memory care. Laura is no spring chicken herself, so it is surprising how avidly she involves herself in solving the murder of her aunt’s next-door neighbor at the facility.

Freddy is a dreamer, a toker, a midnight smoker, a young felon-in-the-making, but also a sweet, air-headed young man. He makes glass beads and bongs for a “living.” His grandmother provided stability for him and his sisters when they were young, so he couldn’t refuse when he became the only one able to take care of her. When it became too hard to care for her at home by himself, Freddy placed her in the same facility as Laura’s aunt. He visits regularly and has bonded with Laura over the difficulties of having loved ones lost to the world they once knew.

Laura feels real and warm. Even Freddy, who is often lost in a pot haze, has substance. He also has become entangled in some shady dealings because of his impulsive nature (and because he is stoned most of the time). Laura, on the other hand, is a little quirky but very down-to-earth. They form a loose alliance to figure out what is going on at the care facility. Are their relatives safe? Did a staff member kill a patient? Or has Freddy somehow unknowingly brought his criminal acquaintances to the care center?

While the characters are strong, the plot meanders. And I’m not certain lovers of cozy mysteries really need that much detail on how to make a bong. The little stories within the big plotline bounce and boing everywhere. Reading this book is like having a conversation with a person who knows interesting people and interesting facts, and she wants to tell you about all of it.

Two Days Gone by Randall Silvis

Poisoned Pen Press, 400 pages, $15.99 (c2017)

I’m tired of genre-shaming. What is the difference between a “literary” mystery and a mystery? (Or, for that matter, between a literary book and a mystery?) Is a plain mystery not literary? Bushwa! Are there more polysyllabic words in a literary mystery. Do I have to dive for my dictionary at least once every chapter if the book is literary? I liked “Two Days Gone,” by Randall Silvis. But in the material inserted after the book, Silvis relates how someone criticized his book as being too literary. Before I read this additional (scurrilous) material, I said, Wow, there are a lot of literary references in this book, and there is a dissonance between that and the tough-talking, prolific swearing portions of his book. Let’s discuss further.

The putative killer of “Two Days Gone” is Tom Huston, an English professor in northern Pennsylvania and a best-selling author. He is suspected of killing his family. This family would be Huston’s lovely, elegant wife, his 12-year-old son, his fourth grade daughter, and his new baby boy. A huge manhunt is organized to find Huston, who has presumably disappeared into the dense woods of Pennsylvania near his home.

Ryan DeMarco is the cop assigned to find Huston. The catch is there was a budding friendship between DeMarco and Huston. Huston had inscribed one of his best-selling books for DeMarco. DeMarco finds it harder and harder to believe Huston was the killer.

The intersecting chapters to DeMarco’s story belong to Tom Huston. He is on the run, and Silvis follows him in a limited fashion. The advantage of the third-person perspective Silvis uses is we don’t really get to know what the focal character is thinking. Is Huston guilty? If not, why is he on the run? It is winter and no one with any sense or overriding reason is out and about in that bitter cold.

DeMarco cannot find Huston, which gives him time to compile information on what Huston was last doing. What was he working on in his class? What was he writing, for Huston clearly had started on a new book? One of the first lines of inquiry was whether Huston was having an affair. That leads to a strip joint. And that leads to an entirely different world.

That different world leads to a different way of talking, a different sensibility of the world as a place of safety and nurturance. DeMarco forgoes his initial lofty language and develops a grittier way of writing. As DeMarco finds difficulty sleeping and separating himself from his past, the tenor of the book changes. It’s rougher, darker, nastier. When Edgar Allan Poe is inserted into this part of the story, there is a “Whoa! Nelly” moment. The tone doesn’t fit, but it certainly makes the story interesting.

Brutish, gory scenes play out overlaid by a recitation of “Annabel Lee.” In the book, Silvis invokes Doctorow, Yeats, Flannery O’Connor, Faulkner, and Chandler. There is also some humor — including dark humor, frat boy humor — and a memorable comment about dust bunnies towards the end.

Let me return to my original question about literary versus mystery writing. There are many authors whose writing is “literary”: Thomas Cooke, John Le Carré, Dashiell Hammett, Julian Symons, Tana French. There are many etceteras after those names. But I don’t call their writing literary; I call their writing good. What they have mastered is style. Style can be coarse or eloquent or something in-between. Consistency matters, consistency in style matters, plot matters. Genre doesn’t matter, except if you write about a wrongdoing, then you can call it mystery, crime, Benjamin, or skyhopping. It’s just a name.

Silvis’ plot for this book was rich and shocking. There were so many elements he had to draw together at the end, and he did it. “Two Days Gone” is the first in what is now a five-book series starring DeMarco, the latest of which, “When All Light Fails,” was just released. I enjoyed "Two Days Gone" enough to hope Silvis has done as well with the rest of the series and to hope that he found a smoother stylistic path.

The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley

Penguin Books, 384 pages, $17 (c2020)

Okay, I’ve found my vacation read for this long, hot summer. Not that I went anywhere for a vacation. But I certainly found the book. “The Authenticity Project,” by Clare Pooley, is light but not silly, romantic but not too sappy, snappy but not sarcastic. But it is definitely NOT a mystery.

Imagine yourself a lonely 80-something-year-old man in an upwardly-mobilized part of London. Imagine you are a thirty-something-year-old woman, single, aching to be a mother, who has given up a lucrative job as a lawyer to be the owner of a coffee shop. Imagine you are dissolute man, looking at creeping middle age, with nothing and no one to show for it. What if you all live in the same neighborhood, but you know nothing about each other’s lives. What if that all changed when one day …

Julian, the 80-something, is still depressed, fifteen years after losing his wife. What is there left to live for? What has his life amounted to so far? Julian grabs a notebook and writes in it. He leaves the notebook in the cafe belonging to Monica, the cafe owner whose baby clock is ticking. Monica picks it up and see’s the challenge Julian has left: Tell your authentic story; do not dress it up in the shell you present to the public. One day Monica accepts the challenge and, in turn, leaves the notebook in a bar. It is picked up by Hazard who looks at it through a haze of alcohol and drugs and scoffs at it. 

There is so much more than the individual stories of these characters (and more). It is about community and the family you make from strangers.

This book put me in a happy place. I couldn’t read too many of this type of book in a row but this one was satisfying for here and now. Perhaps you’d like a vacation book — even if you are not going on vacation either — to keep you company.

Picture Ian McKellen as Julian; a slightly younger Kate Winslet as Monica, and a much younger Russell Brand as Hazard. There, now someone can go make the movie.

The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin

Little, Brown and Co., 288 pages, $28

If Quentin Tarantino, Sam Peckinpah, or John Woo made a movie starring a Chinese gunslinger roaming the Wild West, this book would be the inspiration. There are bullets flying, Bowie knives flashing, and scattershots scattered. In contrast, the backbone of the story is one of love.

The title tells you the “hero” of the piece is Ming Tsu. Whether he actually is a hero is one of the primary questions. (I’ll try to give as little of the plot away as possible because revelations are teased out throughout the book.)

Here’s a brief aside about the construction of the transcontinental rail lines. In 1969, then transportation secretary John A. Volpe stated at the centennial celebration of the golden spike ceremony, commemorating when the railroad coming from the west was joined with one coming from east, “Who else but Americans could have laid 10 miles of track in 12 hours?” He neglected to mention the thousands of immigrant Chinese and Irish workers who worked the lines and made the American dream of a railroad crossing the United States possible. In fact, a few years after the completion of the first line, the Chinese were rewarded by the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. (Insert sarcasm emoji.)

As the book begins, Ming Tsu had spent time working on the railroad, driving spikes, working impossibly long days, suffering with thousands of other Chinese workers. He had escaped but was now back to avenge himself for the physical and mental abuse by his white overseer. We learn Ming is a crack shot and a ruthless hunter.

After killing the boss, Ming escapes and takes with him an old man known as “the prophet.” The prophet is blind. Who knows how he managed to survive in the work crew. The prophet lives up to his name as he throws out predictions throughout the book. He can divine the hour and manner of a person’s death. He can foretell disaster. He can sense nobility or weakness.

Ming is on the hunt for other men who have wronged him. The targets are scattered between The Great Salt Lake and California. Eventually, they join a traveling geek show as a cover. The Ringmaster introduces Ming and the prophet to what he says are miracles. The miracles are people, like Hunter, a young boy who is deaf and mute but who can broadcast thoughts into people’s heads; Notah, who can erase people’s memories; Proteus, who takes the shape of different people, most notably the Ringmaster; and Hazel, a woman who can survive being set on fire. Yes, really! They can.

Okay, I hear you saying, what the heck?

Author Tom Lin embraces the mythology of the person who has many labors to fulfill as part of a quest. The powers of good and evil can help or thwart the hero’s journey. This particular journey of Ming Tsu includes a little effort by the supernatural. Is the hero made of the right stuff? If so, he will succeed. “The Thousand Crimes” is about Ming’s journey. But how will success be defined?

Lin combined a great feel-the-grit, taste-the-hard-tack sort of description of the country the group traverses with more literary prose. (Sometimes phrases like, “They traveled together under a fishscale moon,” warred with “Ming stepped out into the hallway, found the man he’d shot through the door writhing on the ground, and killed him.”)

This book kept calling me back to read just one more page, just one more chapter. If I thought the body count excessive, maybe that was the point. If I found the main character too sad and too damaged, maybe that, too, was the point.