April 1945: In the last convulsive days of World War II a convoy of Nazi trucks loaded with Europe's greatest art treasures winds its way through the Alps toward a cavernous Austrian salt mine. With the Allies closing in and chaos erupting, a single truck silently disappears into a mountain snowstorm with its cargo of stolen masterpieces. Fifty years later, in a seedy Boston pawnshop, one of the truck's paintings surfaces at last, pawned for $100 by a smalltime Russian thug. The next day, the shop owner, Simeon Pawlovsky, himself a Nazi death camp survivor, is dead, the life brutally beaten out of him. The painting is gone. And the chase begins. Ex-curator Benjamin Revere, haunted by his failure to save his elderly friend Simeon, is determined to track down the killer by following the missing painting's trail. But the twisting path is a bewildering and dangerous one that winds through Europe's major cities...and back five decades to a time when Hitler's hated minions looted at will. Soon Ben finds himself caught up in the tangled roots of a conspiracy of greed, lies, hatred, and blood—and imperiled by the half-century-old enigma of the vanished truck and its priceless legacy.
Aaron J. Elkins, AKA Aaron Elkins (born Brooklyn July 24, 1935) is an American mystery writer. He is best known for his series of novels featuring forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver—the 'skeleton detective'. The fourth Oliver book, Old Bones, received the 1988 Edgar Award for Best Novel. As Oliver is a world-renowned authority, he travels around the world and each book is set in a different and often exotic locale.
In another series, the protagonist is museum curator Chris Norgren, an expert in Northern Renaissance art.
One of his stand-alone thrillers, Loot deals with art stolen by the Nazis and introduces protagonist Dr. Benjamin Revere.
With his wife, Charlotte Elkins, he has also co-written a series of golf mysteries about LPGA member Lee Ofsted. They shared an Agatha Award for their short story "Nice Gorilla".
Aaron and Charlotte live on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.
I have read many books by Aaron Elkins over time, always enjoying the focus on art. In this case the art of focus pertained to stolen works from Nazi storage. It gets complicated with plenty of physical threat, but starts with the brutal murder of a Boston pawn shop owner. His friend Ben launches into extensive investigation with the intent of recovery of painting that was stolen. It results in recovery of enormous cache as he gets help from police. The investigation provides interesting travelogue as well. Plenty of action and even a bit of romance. Good plot.
4.0 out of 5 stars A hunt for a cache of stolen art...
Charlotte Elkins noted on an Amazon mystery discussion that her husband's art trilogy about a museum curator in Seattle, Washington was written "before its time." The first novel in the Chris Norgren trilogy is A Deceptive Clarity (1987). She could have easily said the same about this standalone novel LOOT (1999). Elkins bases the novel on the famed MFA&A...the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Unit...an Anglo-American organization of hastily commissioned arts experts. The organization, created by the U. S. Army in 1943, sought to ferret out and restore to rightful owners, the huge hoard of the Nazi's stolen art. In 2009 Robert M. Edsel wrote a large tome about The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History. The book has been adapted for a movie starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett and will be released in December of 2013.
Aaron Elkins based this novel on the MFA&A and tells a well-researched tale of a truck lost in a snowstorm on its way to the Altaussee Salt Mine in the Austrian Alps in 1945. The truck contained 106 pieces of Old Masters paintings...by Michelangelo and daVinci to Van Eyck and Vermeer...pilfered for the Fuhrer and destined for storage at the Altaussee mine. Half a century later, a Russian pawnbroker in Boston's South End calls in an old friend to look at a painting he has just acquired.
Ben Revere, art historian and ex-museum curator, has just divorced and has resigned his teaching position at Harvard. He is living on a ridiculously large sum of money he acquired from selling his share of a business that sold Italian Renaissance postcards by mail. He has known Simeon Pawlovsky for almost two years and is curious about the painting his pawnbroker friend is calling about. After a viewing and some research, Revere believes it's a Diego Velasquez (1599-1660) and determines the painting, The Count of Torijos, was on the lost truck headed for Altaussee.
We follow Ben Revere to Vienna, Salzburg, St Petersburg and Budapest in this fast-paced tale. We meet several Europeans who claim provenance for the Velazquez...Count Albrecht Stetten and Jakob Nussbaum (and his miniature Schnauzer Wittgenstein) and several members of the Russian mafia, Simeon's grandniece Alex from Brookline. We visit the Heritage Museum to see a J. M. W. Turner landscape and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. We stay in posh hotels...the Grand Europe in Russia, the Hotel Imperial in Vienna and the Hotel Altstadt in the most picturesque part of Salzburg.
It's a grand adventure and despite two or three murders....a nice resolution.
Really three and a half stars. The hunt for missing paintings that were stolen by the Nazis during WWII. The first half of the novel was a little slow, as it was a bit short on action and focused alot on research. The pace picked up in the second half, with alot more action. It had an interesting and satisfying ending too. I learned alot about art history, how to legally prove art ownership, and about the real Nazi looting of European masterpieces. An interesting book I'm glad I read.
Another new character, Benjamin Revere, is introduced in this book. I like this art guy better than Elkins' other art guy; he's just more real for some reason.
The hook here is that a friend of Ben's, a local pawnshop owner, asks him to come look at a painting someone just brought in to be pawned; he thinks it might be a 'real' painting. Next thing Ben knows, his friend is beaten up, dies as a result, and the painting has disappeared. In researching it, he finds that it disappeared during World War II, probably one of the many artworks the Nazis appropriated from their rightful owners.
Ben follows the trail to Austria, then to St. Petersburg, and eastern Europe...and also discovers himself falling for the niece of his friend who shows up to help him figure out why her uncle was killed.
Great story. Boston art expert follows a convoluted path to track down the murdered of a pawn shop owner and the provenance of an old masters painting looted by the Nazis. His travels take him to Vienna, to Salzburg to St. Petersburg, to Budapest, back to Vienna To Altausee, and finally to Geneva. This was a good fictional companion read to the non fiction "The Monuments Men" that I read a few weeks back.
I enjoyed this story immensely! Very unique and entirely plausible to me. Definitely recommend to those readers who wish to expand their knowledge of classic fine art, European destinations not overly mentioned in books, and just the right amount of Holocaust references to remind us not to forget, without making the story depressing. The narrator did an excellent job of bringing the unique cast of characters to life! A hidden gem I hope more readers discover!
Thanks to a discussion on DorothyL about art looted by the Nazis, some of which was re-looted by the Soviets and never returned, I found that Aaron Elkins had this stand-alone book. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
This was a nice read. "Loot" refers to art stolen by the Nazis in WWII. The book starts with the stolen art being catalogued in a salt mine, but quickly jumps to present day and the quest to find the works in the missing truck. I enjoy mysteries with a basis in history!
Dr. Benjamin Revere, an art expert, has helped the Boston police from time to time with assessment of stolen art. On one such occasion, Revere meets pawn shop owner Simeon Pawlovsky. They become casual friends, with Revere dropping by the shop to visit or Pawlovsky calling Revere for an opinion on whether a newly pawned painting is valuable. Usually it's not, but this time, Revere believes Pawlovsky has acquired a $5 million, old master for $100. While Revere goes off to confirm his suspicion, Pawlovsky is fatally beaten, and the attacker beats Revere as well when he returns. But the painting is safely locked away.
Revere has discovered that the painting is one of 106 masterpieces being transported by the Nazis in the last days of WWII to the salt mines later uncovered by the Monuments Men. One truck went astray, and the paintings were presumed destroyed until one was displayed at the Hermitage, but the Russians admit nothing. Still, Revere decides to visit a friend at the Hermitage, to see whether he can get a line on the origin of Pawlovsky's painting and, thus, on the murderer. As well, publicity about the murder and painting brings forth a claimant who states that the painting is one of many looted by the Nazis from his father and wants Revere's help in recovering the art work. Thus, Revere begins a hunt throughout Europe for justice for an old pawnbroker and for the victims of the Nazis' depredations.
Nits: p. 177: inconsistency about not having clothing for Russia, when the trip was planned around the Hermitage. p. 235 ¶8: missing beginning quotation mark.
Loot seemed like a just right read for me. World War 2. Looted art (stolen masterpiece in the war). Murder. All kinds of topics into one piece of exciting fiction. Sadly author, Aaron Elkins, forgot the exciting part. The plot was ok(ish). But there were some implausible moments that just never would have happened as they did in this book. The romance the narrator had the niece of the first murder victim was entirely too ridiculous ... love / hate that I doubt would have developed as they did. The climax was ok, but the last chapter was a “where are they know” wrap-up, which I just hate. It’s like the story after the story but the author ran out of time or energy to actually tell it, so here is a brief blurb about each character. Pointless. Honestly, I expected more from a writer of Aaron Elkins stature.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate the book. It was a light read, just don’t expect too much and you won’t be disappointed.
I have shelved this with my WWII books because, though the setting is fifty years later, the plot is based on the true circumstance of looted artwork by the Nazis which was stored in a salt mine in Austria.
Now, a picture surfaces, an exquisite Valazquez, in a pawn shop in Boston. Enter ex-curator Benjamin Revere--and a host of others including Russian mafia figures, an enticing (to Ben) woman, other people who lay claim to these art treasures, 106 of them, that disappeared on a delivery truck. Based on well-researched history and (apparently) extensive travel in the European and Russian places our hero visited, this is an exciting and fast-paced book.
Though in his forties, our hero still needs to grow up. Will he manage to find out who he is and what he wants from life before he finds the real owner of the paintings in question? That is another mystery to solve.
I have never read Aaron Elkins before so I don't know the kind of author he is. The plot of this book at the outset seems interesting and the book starts off well also. But it just failed to keep me interested and hooked for long. For one thing, the writing style is too bland and the plot progression is very boring. The love interest is a forced addition and does nothing for the central story. A lot of the events in the book are very bland and just involve simple dialogue and people going from here to there. The climax has no build up and the final reveal of the mystery isn't very shocking since it was kind of hinted at repeatedly. The end fight, so to speak, was only like a page and a half long and so ended quickly. Basically it wasn't fun.
WW II seemed to have happened so long ago, yet when you a story like Loot it comes right to the forefront, it becomes tangible.
Loot is a work of fiction but it's roots come from many a true story about Jewish persecution by the Nazis. The emphasis is being on how their possessions were stolen. Unfortunately restitution was difficult and/or not always possible. While this is horrible enough, you add those who seek to profit from that miserable legacy even today. Additionally, but not less important, Loot gives you a glance at the corrupt side of the art market today. Loot will not give you an answer to any of those questions but it makes for some thoughtful and enjoyable reading.
The loot of the title consists of the artwork stolen before and during WWII by the Nazis, some of which, in turn, was sequestered by the advancing Soviet troops. One of the pieces, a Velasquez portrait, turns up in a Boston pawnshop and it is not long before the owner is murdered. Art consultant, Ben Revere is determined to track down the killer. Since there is only so much he can do help the police investigation, he decides to follow what few clues there are to Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Hungary. The art lore is fascinating; the character of Ben not so much.
What a fascinating story. The Nazis confiscated hundreds of paintings, statues and other arts from Almost anyone they could and stored them in a salt mine. Although this is a fictional story about some of those paintings, it has many facts that lend some authenticity to it. I liked the characters, they seem very real and I’m sad to come to the end of their story. I like looking up the paintings they talk about and seeing them. I love the descriptions of cities, nature and places. A perfect book!
Very good! Maybe not a true 5-star but easily rounds up to it! By halfway, I was already dreading finishing it: I just wanted it to go on. Nice characters, art history, good people trying to do good things, and mystery! An enjoyable, nice read. Gotta go find out what other Elkins I've missed!
p. 76: "Are you free now?" Alexandra Porter asked. Demanded. / "You mean this minute?" / "Yes. Well, unless you're tied up, of course." / I glanced into the living room, where I'd plumped up a couple of pillows on the sofa to make a daybed for myself in front of the TV. On the coffee table next to it was my dinner, a bag of chili-and-cheese-flavored Fritos and a half a bottle of screw-top Chianti. (Yes, I know, a moderately assertive Puligny-Montrachat would have been the preferred accompaniment, but I was unaccountably out of Puligny-Montrachat at the time.) When the phone rang, I had been lying back tossing chips into my mouth and absentmindeldly watching a skeet-shooting tournament from Spain on ESPN. / "No, I think I can make the time," I said. [MHD note: personally, I pair my chili-cheese Fritos with root beer...but I still admire Elkins' style!]
Fascinating tale about the Nazi confiscation of great art masterpieces during World War II. While much of the art work has been recovered, there are some masterpieces that are still missing. Now, some 40+ years after the end of the war, a couple of the missing masterpieces have appeared. Art curator Ben Revere is determined to track down the rest of the missing art. It becomes a rewarding but dangerous mission. A page turner. Highly recommend.
I loved Aaron Elkins’ Skeleton Doctor series, so not surprised that I liked this one as well.
Dr. Ben Revere’s life is an aimless mess, until an elderly Russian pawnbroker he’s friends with is killed over a missing painting that’s brought into his shop. Nazi art looting, murder, international sleuthing, danger, and love all enter the mix, and Ben comes out of the experience wiser and with a purpose.
I actually read this when it first came out in 1999. The subject is one that I am very interested in and was reminded of the book by a friend. I found it as thrilling as the first time I read it. And I enjoyed the first-person narrative banter by the hero. I found it suspenseful and was glad to see there was enough factual information on the stolen art treasures of WW2 included in the story to make it very enjoyable historically. I'll probably read it again.
Fictional novel that draws on the Holocaust art heist looted by the Nazis and stored in a German salt mine. Well done and informative. Pair this book with the movie, “Monuments Men” for the full story.
This book provides enough good guys, bad guys, and a few you have to wonder about to please any reader. Travel from country to country, landmarks to pristine settings. Try this one, it will make you want more.
I really liked this book…a lot of history and intrigue. How factual it was, I don’t know. I do know that so much art and other valuables ended up destroyed or stolen…. Thinking some of it was restored was uplifting.
For those of us who appreciate mystery, history and art, “Loot” is a perfect mix of all three. The characters are compellingly flawed, unlike the all-too-perfect protagonists in many a series. It’s easy to sit down with this and keep turning the pages.
This is the first I have read in the art curator series with Benjamin revere as the Boston art cop...I liked it pretty well .... probably will read another one