Real Rembrandt Art Theft in a New Detective Yarn: An Interview by Janet Stilson With Larry Maness, Author of ‘The Perfect Crime’

There’s a splendid building in the heart of Boston that’s haunted by a tragic loss. The elegant Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is home to a collection of more than 7,500 pieces of precious art. If you follow art news or events around Boston, then you may recall the burglary that took place there in 1990, which has never been solved. The 13 stolen works of art, 11 of which are paintings, have a value of $500 million and include works by Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer. Empty frames, where stolen paintings once hung, appear like ghosts on the walls.

This provided lots of creative fodder for the writer Larry Maness, who based his recently released mystery novel, The Perfect Crime: Unmasking the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist, on the theft. The captivating tale blends together actual known facts about the Gardner heist, various suspicions, and dark deeds that are purely imagined. Maness seems to have the mental abilities of a master criminal or conspiracy theorist — keeping his readers guessing about where the art might be located and who’s behind the crime until the end.

The Perfect Crime: Unmasking the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist features a fictional detective named Theo Perdoux, who’s a former Boston cop. This is the second time Perdoux has shown up in a Maness novel. The first book in the series, The Last Perdoux, is equally as engrossing and delves into another real mystery: the disappearance of masterpieces stolen by Nazis during World War II.

After reading both books, I had to wonder what parts of the Perdoux mysteries are real, and what parts Maness made up. So I got in touch with him. In the following interview, he supplies some answers and discusses other sources of inspiration, including travels through Italy, where both books are largely set. He also drops a clue about what real-life mystery could be the basis of the next Perdoux novel that he writes.

Why did you decide to center your most recent book on the Gardner art heist? There has to be a lot of mysteries out there worthy of your attention.

“Why has no one claimed the $10 million reward offered by the Gardner Museum for the return of the stolen items?” That question prompted me to consider possibilities for a novel. What really did the robbers want? If not a hefty reward, did a collector want specific masterpieces for his private collection? Or, as some suggest, were the stolen pieces to be used as a bargaining chip to get a master criminal out of prison? My novel explores these options. In the end, it also explains why the reward has never been claimed.

Can you give me some examples of what you included in the novel that’s actually known about the Gardner robbery and what you imagined? For example, was there someone who came to the museum posing as a well-known violin craftsman who was “casing” the artworks that were eventually stolen? Were any of the museum guards suspect?

To answer your last question first, yes, Gardner Museum guards were considered suspects. They did break protocol and let the robbers into the museum. Both guards claimed their innocence. No charges were ever brought.

Once inside, the two robbers dressed as Boston policemen and cut Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and Vermeer’s The Concert from their frames. They collected nine other [paintings] before leaving the museum never to be seen again.

In my novel, The Perfect Crime, I build on the fact that the stolen items have never been found and that the thieves have never been caught. To construct my plot, I created a character who comes to the museum with the stated purpose of repairing the famous Cavelli guitar. His real purpose is far different and leads to the robbery.

What happens to the artwork after the robbery is a major theme of my novel. It is that theme that takes the reader to Rome where most of the novel takes place.

Did you receive any push-back from the museum, or any reaction from it at all, as you were writing or after the book was published?

Larry Maness at work, and the Gardner Museum’s courtyard. Photo Sources: Larry Maness and (for the courtyard) Jen Shishmanian on Unsplash

In your first novel in the series, The Last Perdoux, you explore a mystery that involves art stolen by the Nazis in World War II. Was there a certain moment in time when you had an ah-ha moment, realizing that it was fertile ground to explore in a book — and fertile ground for a book series that uses stolen art as a binding theme?

What first captured my attention was how easily a man’s life can be upended. Stolen artwork was an added element.

The idea for creating Theo Perdoux, a man with a fascinating past he knew nothing about since he had been adopted, came from a true story I read about in a newspaper. It seems a middle-aged man from Boston was located by a Spanish attorney with news that his biological mother had recently died in Barcelona. She left him her art collection in her will. The news overwhelmed this man and upended his life in various ways. Most of those ways were not pleasant.

In The Last Perdoux, I explore how a life can be upended when one learns that he comes from a famous Paris art collecting family whose collection was stolen by the Nazis during World War II. Theo’s mother spent her life hunting for the family’s stolen artwork. Her will demands that Theo take up the cause as the last Perdoux.

Complexities in the novel are achieved by Theo’s need to find his family’s stolen collection intertwined with his need to find out more about his biological family. As with the man I read about in the newspaper, what Theo learns is not always pleasant. For example, what was his mother’s shame that forced her to give Theo away? Who was Theo’s father? Was he still alive? Theo digs deep into his past to learn those answers.

Is there art stolen by the Nazis that still has yet to be recovered?

The Nazis plundered thousands of pieces of art. Heirs to many of those collections are even now trying to reclaim from museums and private collections what was stolen. Proving ownership is not easy. The process can take years.

What complicates the issue is that museums and private collectors often believe that their purchases were legitimate. In other words, they didn’t believe they were buying stolen merchandise. As a consequence, they are reluctant to give the pieces back. Enter the courts.

One of the aspects of both books that I love are its locations. The majority of the action in both books takes place in various parts of Italy. Can you tell me a little about your travels there, and the creative “seeds” it planted in your mind?

My first trip to Rome was for the production of one of my plays. I stayed for six months, living in an apartment overlooking the Spanish Steps. Years later, my wife and I rented a house in a small hilltop village for four months in Liguria, an area between Nice and Genoa. Fewer than 400 people lived in the village. A Catholic church sat at one end, a small market at the other. In the middle was a simple café. It was the perfect, remote location to use as the setting for The Last Perdoux.

A few years later, we rented a house back in Rome for several months. During that trip, the idea of The Perfect Crime came to me. On one corner not far from our house near the Campo di Fiori was the small shop of a famous violin maker. That shop and its proprietor form the basis for Aldo Conti, the violin maker in The Perfect Crime.

For readers who’ve never been to Italy, I try to provide a sense of what a wonderful country it is. For those who have been, I hope the locations I use in my plots resonate.

There’s an arch nemesis in both books — a mysterious Nazi whose whereabouts is largely unknown, except for the unexpected moments when he surfaces. And the man, Wilhelm Barr, is also the protagonist’s father. Is he based on any historical figures in particular?

Not specifically, Wilhelm Barr is an amalgam, a mixture of characteristics from various figures. I don’t read a lot of fiction. Most of my reading is biography and history. Researching The Perfect Crime, I read several books on Nazi Germany. Barr’s creation was no doubt influenced by that reading, but he isn’t based on one specific historical figure.

Did you base the character traits of the detective Theo Perdoux on any people in particular?

Theo is pure fiction. I wanted him to have characteristics that readers admire and expect in protagonists. As a consequence, Theo is intelligent, inquisitive, tough enough to survive, and determined. He is divorced. His business partner in Sala Ponte, a combination art gallery and art reclamation service, is Gina Ponte, a happily married lesbian.

In “The Perfect Crime” one of the characters is named Marianna. Immediately, I was struck by how closely that resembles your wife’s name, Marianne. Do you often pick names of people you know as a way of delving more deeply into the characters you write?

I did model Marianna on my wife, Marianne. She has appeared in all of my novels, not always identified by name. Creating believable characters is the key to a successful novel. Painters rely on models; writers do as well.

As far as selecting names, I don’t often use names of people I know. I once made the exception and used the names of a brother and sister who ran the coffee shop near me in Cambridge. They were delighted and gave me free coffee for a week.

Have you pinpointed the next mystery that you want Theo Perdoux to solve?

I am researching now an idea involving Thomas Jefferson. All of my six previous novels have had some connection to an historical event. Jefferson’s life is full of historical events. In addition, he was an avid collector.

Whether or not there is a novel in any of my research, it’s too soon to tell. If not, I’ll move on to something else. I have a folder full of ideas.

***

Larry Maness is the author of two books of plays and six novels (the last of which was published in 2023). 3 Plays was introduced by Pulitzer prize-winner, William Inge. His plays War Rabbit and Bailey both premiered in New York City at The American Theatre of Actors. His first novel, Nantucket Revenge, is called “The best beach read since Jaws” according to Florida Crime Writers author Steve Glassman. His second novel, A Once Perfect Place, is included in the Literature of Social Change collection at Duke University. Strangler, his third novel featuring Private Investigator Jake Eaton, is a Detective Book Club selection. The Voice of God, his fourth novel, is called by Rosemary Herbert, author of The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, “an assured production that snares the reader from start to finish.”  And, of course, there are the two novels featured in the interview above. Maness lives on the south shore of Massachusetts with his wife, Marianne, known as “The Cookie Lady” in some parts of the world.

Janet Stilson writes sci-fi fiction that's shot through with suspense. Her novel about the future of media and mind control, The Juice, received rave reviews, and is based on her work as a journalist. Janet is the winner of the Writers’ Lab for Women competition,sponsored by Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman.

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This interview was originally posted on Medium by Janet Stilson. Reprinted with permission. 

MYSTERY READERS ARE THE SMARTEST: Guest Post by Larry Maness

Larry Maness: Case Solved: Mystery Readers are the Smartest

No one, writers and readers alike, enjoys discovering an error in a book. However small, be it a misplaced comma, incorrect spelling, or in the case of one Barry Thomas Reed who pointed out in a precisely crafted letter to my publisher what he called a ‘factual conflict in the early pages’ of my novel, Nantucket Revenge. Mr. Reed writes that on page 26, lines 9-10, on page 30, lines 2-3, and on page 32, line 19, there appears to be some confusion on whether the passenger ferry Eagle sailing out of Nantucket ran aground before or after the Coast Guard boarded her. 

I wrote Mr. Reed a warm Thank You note pointing out a different line on page 26 stating that the Coast Guard successfully boarded the ferry and had her towed back to the dock after she’d grounded. Conflict resolved. 

Over the years I have had occasion to correspond to readers with questions ranging from who a certain character is modeled after—if any-to where best to begin a hike given the locations mentioned in A Once Perfect Place set near New Hampshire’s Pitcher Mountain. 

All reader’s questions and comments reinforce something that I’ve believed since I began writing mysteries: Mystery readers are some of the most intelligent and actively engaged readers in the reading world. 

Years ago, I was one of several book reviewers for “Boston Review” and “The Boston Phoenix.” In the days before electronic submissions, publishers sent advanced copies or galleys to Arts Editors who made reviewer assignments, if we did not find on our own something that we wanted to read. Finding that soon-to-be-reviewed tome involved a trip to one office or the other and rummaging through stacks of books until selecting a book. 

Other reviewers did the same and would often make comments on a book someone had selected. The jab went something like, “Why review that (substitute any genre here) when you could write about something more serious?” The slight was obvious: mystery, thriller, Sci-Fi (add any genre fiction) is less than so-called serious fiction. To take that thought further, genre readers are somehow inferior to readers of serious fiction. They want page-turning escape. They want to ignore the struggles of life, which is the purview of the serious novel. 

P.D. James and John D. MacDonald, both excellent stylists to name but two, would likely challenge the notion that their best fiction was anything other than serious work, and that their readers were somehow inferior. In my view, readers who enjoy puzzling out the guilty in the pages of a well-written mystery are actively engaged in characters, plots, and places like no other readers. 

One reason for this is that the nature of a mystery novel invites the reader to participate in solving a puzzle. A crime or murder is committed. What was the motive? How was it done? Who did it? These and other questions create a unique bond between writer and reader. As the characters develop and the plot hurries along, the mystery reader transforms him or herself into an additional detective trying to solve the case along with the fictional characters. This is especially true when the author writes in first person since the reader and the fictional detective learn about the crime and possible solutions simultaneously. 

This participation in the novel occurs because readers of mysteries are basically curious. To solve the mystery requires careful, thoughtful reading mixed with a bit of logic that helps spot the red herrings. These readers really do want to know who did it. But they don’t want the answer to come too easily. Readers feel cheated when after 100 pages they have figured it all out. No, they want a challenge and good mysteries provide that. 

There is another, perhaps more important, reason that mystery readers are actively engaged like no other readers and that relates to their book selection process. Publishers’ marketing research has been done in how the background color of the dust jacket and shelf placement effects sales. Books with black covers placed on the bottom of the retail book shelf sell fewer copies than novels with lighter covers placed near the top. But more than the cover and shelf placement, readers of mysteries relate to the underlying theme of all mystery novels: The never ending battle between good and evil played out in a familiar arena. 

In the real world, crime often does pay and amoral, vicious men and women can and do get away without penalty. In most mystery novels, the good and virtuous win. The victory may not be tidy, some rough edges may remain, but the bad guys pay their debt. The victory over evil is sweeter when the protagonist overcomes his or her many flaws to gain the upper hand. Again, in the real world, our flaws are often not overcome. We don’t win all the entered races and the girl of our dreams may have run off with the crook who lives next door. 

In a mystery novel, the crook gets busted, the girl comes to her senses, and we are all breaking the tape when we cross the finish line first. So for all the Barry Thomas Reeds out there who take the time to spot a factual conflict in any of my work, I thank you in advance for taking my and all other mystery writers novels seriously enough to offer your thoughts. We are, after all, moving through the pages together. 

 ***

Larry Maness is the author of Nantucket Revenge, A Once Perfect Place, and Strangler—all featuring Jake Eaton, Private Investigator. The Jake Eaton mysteries and his novel The Voice of God were reprinted last year by Speaking Volumes Publishing who published his newest novel, The Last Perdoux, in the Spring. 

The Importance of Place: Guest Post by Larry Maness

Larry Maness:
The Importance of Place

Over the years, my wife, Marianne, and I have traveled in Italy from Turin in the north to Salerno in the south staying anywhere from a few days to 6 months in cities and towns like Rome, Florence, Siena, Modena, Bologna, Venice and the tiny hilltop town of Civezza where I based my fifth novel, The Last Perdoux.

An 800-year-old village along what is known as the Italian Riveria, Civezza was built on top of the eastern edge of the Maritime Apennines halfway between Genoa and Nice. With its expansive view of the Medeterrian, early settlers built four, stone, lookout towers, two at each end of the village, to spot any invading ships. Now, with a population of only 348 mostly elderly and self-sufficient Italians, the towers are gone, and the view is terraced olive trees and small vineyards with a narrow tarmac road carrying the twice-daily bus from Porto Maurizio through dangerous hairpin turns.

A dot on a map, Civezza appears unremarkable. Having spent nearly four months there drafting The Last Perdoux, I say it was one of the most fascinating experiences in my Italian travels.

Like many small Italian villages, Civezza provides few draws for tourists. At the lower end of the village sits Chiesa San Marco Evangelista, the Catholic church first built in the 1400s, then refurbished in the 1700s. The church bells rang every half-hour, twenty-four hours a day. I will never forget the ringing bells and the waw-waw-waw of the Porto bus signaling its climb up the mountain.

From the church, via Dante, the village’s steep and narrow cobble-stone main street, angles up past attached ochre-colored houses, past a small but functional alimentari where pasta and canned goods were always available as well as the occasional dressed rabbit and chicken. A fountain in the middle of a small piazza with a few outside chairs marks the local café where village elders—including Giuseppe, our next door neighbor who sold us his own olive oil and wine-gather for coffee, cigarettes, and talk.

Fresh vegetables required a bus ride down the mountain to the farmer’s market in Porto Maurizio where many shops, newsstands, and trattorias could be found. In distance it wasn’t far, but the bus didn’t always run on time, or when it did, it didn’t always run back to Civezza. Mechanical failure or bus driver strikes often left us shoppers scrambling for a ride up the mountain, carrying bags of long-stemmed artichokes, kale, and local cheeses before they spoiled in the heat. Other than trips to the market, we had little use for a car and never rented one. Besides, via Dante was too narrow for the smallest Italian car to pass. Even motorcycles were risky as the house front doors, our rental included, opened directly onto the narrow street.

We knew much of village life before we signed the lease as our landlady was the friend of one of Marianne’s Cambridge acquaintances. As such, one conversation led to another, and before long we were looking at pictures of a lovely apartment overlooking the Medeterrian with fig, lemon, and orange trees growing in the backyard garden. It was the perfect setting for the novel I had been researching. I was eager to move in and get started writing.

A combination of research and firsthand experiences have shaped my four previously novels. To help me capture the seafaring elements of Nantucket’s history, I drafted Nantucket Revenge, my first Jake Eaton mystery, while living on a boat for three months in Nantucket Harbor. For Strangler, my third Jake Eaton novel based on the Boston Strangler case, I sought out all of the Boston area crime scenes where Albert DeSalvo supposedly strangled his 11 victims. (Strangler makes the case that DeSalvo was not the Boston Strangler and later DNA testing proved me right.) For my new novel, The Last Perdoux, I wanted to absorb as much of what living in a small Italian village was like, so that I could write about it with confidence.

In fiction, an author can set his plot in motion most anywhere. The best settings, however, are intriguing for the reader and authentic. I knew I wanted to write a novel that had its genesis in World War II with the Nazi art plunder in France and Italy. I also knew that I did not want to tell a war story or a story about the sins of the German army. I wanted to tell a more personal, human story using the Nazi looting as background. I wanted to tell a small story in a small setting, focusing on the theft of one painting, a stolen Rembrandt in the possession of a ruthless Italian art collector sought out by Theo R. Perdoux whose goal is to return the painting to his family’s collection.

The painting, of course, is discovered hanging in Corso, the name of the novel’s fictional village. Why a priceless painting hangs in a small hilltop town is part of the mystery as is the family relationship between the German officer who looted the painting from the Perdouxs in the first place. The art collector, the looter, and the last Perdoux all meet in Corso to battle for the prize. Here is Theo describing his first look at Corso: “A stone stairway led up to via Dante at such a steep angle that I was breathing hard halfway to the top. I stopped to catch my breath beside a small backyard garden filled with lemon, orange, and fig trees. Giant hedges of pungent rosemary-nearly four feet tall—flanked the stairs. Had I not been on a mission, I would have stopped to drink in the simple beauty of this small piece of heaven.”

The real Civezza is not heaven, but it was the perfect place to set The Last Perdoux.

***

Larry Maness is the author of the Jake Eaton mystery series, which is being reprinted by Speaking Volumes Publishing starting April, 2020. His new novel, The Last Perdoux, will be published by SVP this fall.