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Summary
Summary
In a remote Greek village, Captain Elias and his guerillas in the resistance are engaged in battle with the Nazis. A church is burnt to the ground and several people die trying to save a religious icon. Sixty years later the icon surfaces on the New York art market.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Literary agent Olson (of the Donadio & Olson Literary Agency) moves to the other side of the desk with this gripping, intelligent first novel of art thievery, treachery and revenge. It's 1944, and a group of Greek partisans are hiding from the Germans near the village of Katarini. Their leader has put into play a scheme involving a German officer who wants to trade a cache of weapons that will be used to fight the Communists after the war for a painted icon known as the Holy Mother of Katarini. The plan goes awry, and the ancient Byzantine icon disappears, only to resurface 56 years later on the wall of a private chapel in the New York City home of a Swiss banker named Kessler. After Kessler dies, various parties-the Greek Orthodox Church, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an elderly Greek gangster and other mysterious characters-vie to acquire the icon, which is said to posses paranormal powers. Kessler's granddaughter Ana and young Matthew Spear, an assistant curator at the Met, are swept up in the tangled plots to buy or steal the icon. The story twists back and forth between wartime Greece and the present day as the history of the icon and the men who lust for it is gradually revealed. Only the violent and inevitable end brings understanding and a measure of peace to those under the icon's spell. Agent, Sloan Harris. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Old enemies from the partisan warfare in WWII Greece bring their various lusts for an ancient Byzantine icon to New York City and Westchester. Lots of double and triple crossings keep things moving in this first thriller from Olson, whose day job is agent to Big Literary Names. The action usually distracts from the clunky Old-Greek-Guys-in-Translation dialogue that fills the air when retired Hellenic intelligence agent Andreas Spyridis lands in Manhattan to spar for possession of an important artwork with his former ally in the resistance, Fotis Dragoumis. The adversaries are linked by more than their past: Andreas's American grandson Matthew Spear, an up-and-coming curator at the Met, is Fotis's godson, and Andreas's son is married to Fotis's niece. But the Old Guys trust each other not at all. There is too much bad blood from the war. Although they were allied against the Axis, they worked for different ends. They must, however, put their to-be-explained differences aside for the moment. The icon whose theft from their village church led to mass executions and the burning of the village is up for sale from the holdings of Herr Kessler, a shadowy collector recently deceased. Matthew Spear is supposed to negotiate purchase of the icon for the Met. His heritage and his surprisingly visceral reaction to the icon when it's revealed, however, make him sympathetic to the desire of the Orthodox Church to repossess the work now held by Kessler's attractive granddaughter Ana. Matthew also wonders whether the legendarily wonder-working icon could help his ailing father, a hope encouraged for his own reasons by Dragoumis. Ana agrees to accept a bid from the church that is less than the apparent market price of the artwork, but the church's negotiator is a fake, and the icon promptly goes missing. Has Dragoumis somehow made off with it? Or was it snatched for the Nazi officer who lusted after it all those years ago in Greece? He may be in town on a visit from Argentina. A passable debut with good scenery. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In this debut thriller, the fast-paced action moves between a Greek village during World War II and the contemporary art scene in New York. There is also--no doubt with the popularity of The Da Vinci Code in mind--a patina of religious wonder shrouding the story. Two elderly friends/rivals, who fought both Communists and Nazis in Greece, are related by blood, broken dreams, and their quest to track down a religious icon, a Byzantine panel of the Virgin Mary reputed to have mystical healing powers. The grandson of one and the godson of another, Matthew Spear, is an art historian at the Met, and when the icon surfaces after the death of a collector, Matthew finds himself caught up in its deadly wake. Although both plot strands are nicely developed, it sometimes takes so long to get back to the World War II story that readers may forget who's who. Yet the evolution of the characters holds our attention, the action is gripping, and the quest for the ever-illusive icon provides just the right gossamer string to tie it all together. --Ilene Cooper Copyright 2005 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Trying his hand at writing, literary agent Olson dreams up a thriller about an icon lost when a Greek church burns to the ground during World War II. So how can it turn up on the New York art market six decades later? (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.