Stealing Mona Lisa
Page 30
In the early part of the twentieth century, the River Seine did overflow its famous banks, inundating streets, flooding metro stations, and making thousands of Parisians homeless. L’inondation de Paris actually took place in 1910, a year before the Mona Lisa was stolen. I trust the reader will forgive me for moving that event forward for dramatic purposes.
Acknowledgments
A novel, like a child, takes a village. In chronological order of their contributions to this book, I’d like to thank: Paul Samuel Dolman for reading the earliest incarnation as a screenplay, and on whom I could always depend for encouragement; Julie Barr McClure for listening to my story before a word had been written. Cody Morton, Toni Henderson, Beverly Morton, Jim Herbert, and Peter Dergee for being intrepid early readers and providing invaluable feedback and suggestions; Jill Spence for lending her ears to a final reading; Marie Bozzetti-Engstrom for eagerly volunteering to be my first editor and for all those breakfasts at Bongo Java; Gretchen Stelter for her insightful editorial suggestions; my agent at the Victoria Sanders Agency, Bernadette Baker-Baughman, for her confidence and tenaciousness; the entire team at St. Martin’s Press for their professional skills; and my editor at Minotaur Books, Nichole Argyres, for her brilliant editorial guidance and unflagging support.
Anyone interested in reading further about the places and events depicted in this book should consider the following books, which were extremely helpful to me in my research: Paris Then and Now by Peter and Oriel Caine, Becoming Mona Lisa: The Making of a Global Icon by Donald Sassoon; Paris: Memories of Times Past (with 75 Paintings by Mortimer Menpes), by Solange Hando, Colin Inman, Florence Besson, and Roberta Jaulhaber-Razafy; and Paris Under Water: How the City of Light Survived the Great Flood of 1910 by Jeffrey H. Jackson.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
STEALING MONA LISA. Copyright © 2011 by Carson Morton. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Morton, Carson.
Stealing Mona Lisa : a mystery / Carson Morton. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-62171-1
1. Swindlers and swindling—Argentina—Fiction. 2. Art—Forgeries—Fiction. 3. Leonardo, da Vinci, 1452–1519. Mona Lisa—Fiction. 4. Art thefts—France—Paris—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.O77863S74 2011
813'.6—dc22
2011009099
First Edition: August 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-7203-1
First Minotaur Books eBook Edition: August 2011