A. J. Zerries The Lost Van Gogh

The Lost Van Gogh by A.J. Zerries

The Lost Van Gogh, the inaugural work of husband/wife writing team A.J. Zerries, [ISBN 0765312506, May 2006, St. Martin's Press] is the latest in a series of adventure/mysteries which take place in the middle and latter part of the 20th century. This cosmopolitan thriller novel set in New York City, Long Island, Maine, Paris and Argentina provides us with the insider's view of the world of contemporary art collectors, dealers and famous museums.

A latter day Columbo, New York City Police Department Major Case Squad Detective Clay Ryder, former Navy SEAL, Ivy League educated art enthusiast, and a former employee of a highly regarded art dealer helps to solve several Upper West Side B & E's, a socialite's murder, and the delivery of a $50 million lost Van Gogh portrait to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Along the way, we learn the ins and outs of police procedure and politics as Ryder traces the Van Gogh painting's provenance, delving into the wholesale theft of artwork by the Nazis during their occupation of many countries in Europe during the waning months of World War II. Detective Ryder assists the Met with reuniting the painting of Monsieur Trabuc with the sole surviving heir of the original Holocaust-era owner, Dr. Rachel Preminger Meredith, an NYU professor of film studies at the Tisch School of the Arts.

The Met hastily mounts a striking exhibit entitled "The Empty Frame", which evokes the presence of looted artwork which have not been returned to the rightful owners or heirs while highlighting the return of Meredith's prize Grand Master. Action accelerates once the Van Gogh takes its place on the wall of the Merediths' Greenwich Village apartment and the professor refuses to sell it to any of the gallery directors pounding their way to her door. When Ryder investigates a series of events that befall the beautiful professor and her family, he uncovers the decades-long trail of a Nazi officer and others who will stop at nothing, including murder, to regain ownership of the Van Gogh masterpiece. Mossad agents, New York detectives, Maine policemen all combine forces to hunt down the master Nazi criminal in a breath-taking sequence of chases.

This is a first fiction work from the Zerries, but hopefully, not the last! Although it isn't The Da Vinci Code, for those who like art and culture, travel, intrigue and history all entwined with romance and social commentary, this is a great reading choice for a long daily commute or for a lakeside read this summer.

The Lost Van Gogh

A. J. Zerries

Forge, May 2006, $24.95

ISBN: 0765312506

The Metropolitan Museum of Art curators are stunned when a lost $50 million van Gogh Portrait of Monsieur Trabuc arrives in an ordinary UPS package delivered from Argentina. NYPD Major Case Squad Detective Clay Ryder specializes in art theft, so is assigned the investigation.

He learns that in 1944 Paris, a Jewish widow accused a German SS officer of stealing her family's van Gogh painting. However, the officer apparently died soon after the complaint was lodged in a car accident; the painting vanished. Ryder traces the offspring of the widow, which leads to NYU Professor Rachel Meredith. The MOMA does the right thing restoring ownership to Rachel in a gala that attains international reporting. However, soon afterward someone attacks Rachel, who turns to Clay for safety even as Israeli Mossad operatives see the painting as the first step in capturing an SS officer who has been underground for decades.

This terrific thriller that is at its best during Clay's initial investigation as readers obtain a strong police procedural and insight into Nazi art looting. The tale remains suspense filled fun as it spins into the search for the Nazi and the assaults on Rachel. However having both leaves the former a bit shortchanged and unneeded. Still THE LOST VAN GOGH is quite a find for thriller readers.

Harriet Klausner