THE BILTMORE'S MONA LISA

Smith’s historical novel details an attempt to purloin the Mona Lisa in the 1940s.

In 1941, there is concern among top American authorities that the United States may soon enter the war raging in Europe. With this concern comes the fear that German U-boats could attack the Eastern Seaboard. As a precaution to protect a collection of invaluable art in Washington, D.C., a number of works are sent further inland; the final destination is the Biltmore Estate outside of Asheville, North Carolina. Included in this haul is a painting on loan from France: Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. A security detail is arranged for the estate led by American soldier Cpt. Declan Donahue. Back in Germany, the notorious pilferer of foreign treasures and all-around monster Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring would love to get his hands on the da Vinci masterpiece. He assembles a crack team of military men to make a journey across the Atlantic and into the American south to steal the painting. To complicate matters, a number of Mona Lisa fakes are in circulation, including one the team will take with them to substitute it for the real McCoy. This fictional tale (the Mona Lisa was never stored in North Carolina) takes the reader down a strange path; from a perilous U-boat journey to the difficulties of running a security detail on an American estate, the narrative explores many different angles of the caper. Readers expecting a simple story about a simple theft are in for surprises as the adventure expands to places well beyond Asheville, such as the fighting in North Africa. Though the plot’s twists are lively, the dialogue often falls flat as characters announce what they are doing or about to do (“I’ll phone in an order to Morris Field Supply”). Still, the story makes for a divertingly outlandish caper.

A dialogue-heavy yet refreshingly wild account of an international heist.