Book: The Last Mona Lisa

Author: Jonathan Santlofer

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

Price: $27.99

In Jonathan Santlofer’s The Last Mona Lisa, the protagonist, Luke Perrone, an art professor, remarks how many of his students prefer seeing a facsimile of paintings on their laptops rather than visiting museums that are often crowded and noisy. To truly realize the significance of the Mona Lisa, one of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpieces housed at the Louvre in Paris, one must see the painting in person. Framed in a glass case and always surrounded by adoring crowds with smartphone cameras, the painting is much smaller than one would expect. The experience is both overwhelming and underwhelming. While the painting itself has little impact on you, the sheer enthusiasm around it forces you to reconsider your perception.

It is thus fitting that the Mona Lisa, one of the most recognizable paintings in the world, forms the subject of Santlofer’s thrilling world of fake paintings and greedy art collectors who would go to any length to lay their hands on prized art. Premised on the theft of the painting by Vincenzo Peruggia in 1911, the book builds a fictional narrative around his great-grandson, Luke Perrone, who is obsessed with his great-grandfather’s history and with clearing his family’s name. He is also intrigued by the continuing controversy about multiple copies of the Mona Lisa and the possibility that the one at the Louvre is a fake. After receiving information about his great-grandfather’s lost journal, Luke travels to Florence to uncover the truth.

Close on his heels is John Washington Smith, an analyst at the Interpol’s art theft division, who has been looking for a break that would take his career to the next level. Luke’s quest for his great-grandfather’s truth provides such an opportunity. Smith is not the only one interested in Luke’s adventures: he is also being followed by an anonymous stalker who does not think twice about shedding blood. In the middle of all this, Luke meets and falls in love with the beautiful and elegant Alexandra Greene, who seems to hide more than what she reveals.

What follows is a pacy, adrenaline-rush-inducing adventure with surprising revelations and substantial doses of violence thrown in for good measure. The book is the kind of thriller that you would want to pick up before a long flight. The plot moves along expected lines and the storytelling, with each chapter told from the perspective of a different character, is interesting enough to retain your attention.

But a lot seems to happen by sheer coincidence, and the reader would be well-advised not to read too much into them. Curiously, some of the warmest moments in the book are not between Luke and Alexandra (their attraction appears forced) but rather between Luke and Smith: they seem to share an uncharacteristic chemistry while trying to solve Mona Lisa’s mystery. The book could have benefited from giving Smith and Luke some more time together.

With its shadowy villains and European locations, The Last Mona Lisa is ripe for a Hollywood adaptation. If thrillers with chicken-soup-like qualities warm your soul, then you will not go wrong with this one.