THE THEFT OF THE VIRGIN by John Scherber

THE THEFT OF THE VIRGIN by John Scherber

John Scherber, The Theft of the Virgin (San Miguel Allende Books, 2012).

Also available on Kindle.

(MYSTERY)

Reviewed by Wilda Morris

When I visit a city, especially outside the US, I enjoy reading novels set in that location. In the shop of the Biblioteca in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico (the library with the second largest collection of books in English in all of Mexico), I found a series of mysteries set in that fascinating city. I should have selected the first in the series of Paul Zacher mysteries, Twenty Centavos, but The Theft of the Virgin, the ninth one, was a bit lighter, and I had already purchased several books (i.e., my suitcase was getting heavy!). As with most such series, later books give away some things that happened in earlier books.

I was in San Miguel de Allende (SMA) to attend The San Miguel Poetry Week (http://www.sanmiguelpoetry.com/) and to enjoy the many delights of the old colonial city and its environs, so I read only the first few pages while I was there. I finished the rest on the flight back to Illinois. The main characters in the series are Paul Zacher, Maya Sanchez, and Cody Williams. Paul is an American expat living in SMA. Like many expats there, Paul is an artist, or more specifically, a painter. In Twenty Centavos, he got pulled into the investigation of the murder of an antique dealer, and he has been investigating crimes ever since. His Mexican girlfriend, Maya Sanchez, has become the manager of the Paul Zacher Detective Agency. She is beautiful and witty. She is unhappy when Paul gets her into dangerous situations although she is very good at dealing with them. Cody is another American expat, a retired detective. The characters are three-dimensional and interesting.

Much of the story takes place in SMA, where who knows what (or who) lurks behind the omnipresent high privacy walls. Dr. Bernard Glass heads the Vergruen Reference Collection, a collection of fakes of paintings by the old masters. Glass exhibits his collection (or parts of it) in various cities around the world and makes presentations on how to recognize forgeries. When the exhibit of fakes comes to Belles Artes in San Miguel, Paul is astonished to discover that the Georges de la Tour painting titled St. Jerome is the genuine article, not a fake at all. He goes to Texas to inform Dr. Glass, only to discover he is a man who taught art history (under a different name) at Miami University in Ohio when Paul was a student there. Dr. Glass dismisses him out of hand. Paul is quite certain the painting is genuine because it is one he studied deeply and copied during his student years.

Paul goes to the Minneapolis Academy of Art where he meets with the executive assistant to the director, to inform her that the Academy is showing a forgery, while the real painting by de la Tour is being shown in an exhibit of fakes. A break-in at Belles Artes results in the disappearance of the painting and—this being a mystery—a murder. To find out what happens next, you will have to read this fast-paced book.

Scherber works in details of the history of Mexico (especially SMA), descriptions of parts of the city, and art history. Far from slowing down the story, these details enliven it. I plan to read more of the series, starting with Twenty Centavos.