DOUBLE DARE

An exasperated executive dips to unconscionable levels to settle a rivalry between dueling co-workers in this novel.

It’s 2008, and John Little, an arrogant, pot-smoking, middle-aged New Jersey restaurateur with a high art fetish and a bad back, gets aggravated by two squabbling subordinates who approach him about their belligerent working relationship. Intensely uninterested in being a human resources referee, John decides to recruit portly, 30-something Philip and tall, lean, 40-something gambler Rick in a competition to decide the fate of their employment. Sutherland creates tension right from the opening pages as the unscrupulous boss sends his embattled employees on the mission of their lives, pandering to his love of rare art and making his workers pawns in a deadly game of international intrigue. The task at hand involves both men committing separate art thefts on a grand scale in a global dual heist of Dutch portrait artist Frans Hals paintings. With a six-month deadline, Philip, a possible company embezzler, is dispatched to Brazil while Rick heads to New Zealand, each poised to rob small museums of their proudest portraiture possessions. John sweetens the pot by offering substantial prize money to the man who returns with his stolen painting first. Rick enlists his durably built brother, Pete, for the unlawful undertaking, and both begin masterminding the museum theft in Auckland before discovering the painting isn’t even in that city. Meanwhile, Philip arrives in Rio de Janeiro and desperately searches for thugs to assist him in his art-napping operation. But in doing so, he paints a target on himself. Rick reroutes his quest to Moscow, where Pete joins him after surveying other Russian museums. They hatch a foolproof plan to steal the Hals painting.

In his rousing tale, the author entertainingly sketches in John’s and his best friend Nizzy’s histories from their drug-dealing days growing up in Boston and avoids making either character excessively antagonistic or noxious. There is an air of innocent fun that permeates the book; no blood is spilled nor any unsavory tactics employed, making the story appealing for weaker-stomached readers. After several unplanned detours (Philip is drugged, robbed, and becomes enmeshed with a mobster) and varied roadblocks, the two desperate rivals enlist the aid of some shady locals and attempt to accomplish their assignments and return to John as newly street-smart thieves. Sutherland’s globe-trotting adventure has enough cinematic momentum to overcome moments where credulity is strained beyond fictional standards or detailed passages that are confusing and aren’t fully realized, like a closing crime that forces John and Nizzy’s car off an embankment. Sure, the premise is preposterous, but the way the author combines plot and characterization amounts to nothing but pure escapism. This is the kind of creatively driven novel that makes art-napping devilishly entertaining, particularly when it’s conducted by two bumbling miscreants trying to save their livelihoods who ultimately end up learning important lessons about themselves.

Credulity issues aside, this thrilling adventure ride plunges into art crimes, job competition, and greed.