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Art Mysteries
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In today's episode, Brook and Sarah discuss mysteries involving art theft and forgeries and learn about MacGuffins.
Discussed and mentioned
Iain Pears - Jonathan Argyll series
Arsène Lupin (created by Maurice Leblanc) and A.J. Raffles (created by E. W. Hornung) - gentlemen thieves
Daniel Silva - Gabriel Allon series
The Art Thief (2023) Michael Finkel
Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art (2020) Netflix
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) Agatha Christie
Murder in Mesopotamia (BBC Radio 4)
The Museum Detective (2025) Maha Khan Phillips
Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder (2024) C.L. Miller
Madame Blanc (2021-present) Acorn TV series
And Only to Deceive (2005) Tasha Alexander
The Paris Widow (2024) Kimberly Belle
G.K. Chesterton - Father Brown series
Related episodes
Villains We Love (released February 28, 2023)
For more information
Instagram: @cluedinmystery Contact us: hello@cluedinmystery.com
Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
Sign up for our newsletter: https://cluedinmystery.com/clued-in-chronicle/
For a full transcript, visit https://cluedinmystery.com/art-mysteries/↗
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Transcript
Introduction to Clued in Mystery Hosts
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. Brooke. Hi, Sarah. Are you an art collector, Sarah?
00:00:25
Speaker
I mean, we have some art, but I would not categorize myself as a collector or even particularly well-informed about art.
00:00:37
Speaker
Oh, good. We're starting from about the same place then. That's good news.
Art in Mystery Fiction: Dark Themes and Settings
00:00:42
Speaker
Well, art may be created to inspire, to preserve beauty, or to celebrate culture.
00:00:47
Speaker
But in the world of mystery fiction, it often carries a darker weight. a priceless painting, a missing relic, a forged signature. These details can become the heart of a puzzle, the motive for betrayal, and even the cause of murder.
00:01:05
Speaker
Mysteries involving art and antiquities have captivated readers for over a century. From the golden age of detective fiction to today's best-selling thrillers, authors have returned again and again to the galleries, auction houses, archaeological digs,
00:01:21
Speaker
and dusty attics where treasure and treachery often go hand in hand. Today, we're unveiling a conversation about mysteries set in the world of art and antiquities, where every masterpiece has a backstory and sometimes a body behind it.
Educational Value of Art Mysteries
00:01:39
Speaker
Oh, great introduction. Thank you, Brooke. So one of the things that I like about mysteries that feature art or antiques is because I know so little about that world, I feel like I learned something.
00:01:56
Speaker
i I have that thought too, that that it's a it's a kind of an educational read. Yes, exactly. i can, I read a series. um I read it in the early 2000s, but I think it actually was, it started in the early This is by Ian Pears.
00:02:15
Speaker
um And it features Jonathan Argyle, who is an English art expert, and Flavia DiStefano, who is a police officer with the Italian Art Theft Squad. And there's a handful of books, four or five maybe, in the series. um And I really felt...
00:02:32
Speaker
when I read them that it wasn't I wasn't being talked down to as the reader and ah to me that's a good sign particularly if I'm reading about something that I don't I don't really know about right I ah wasn't being lectured to but I was you know learning a little bit about different um different art pieces That's right. And also history, because you also can sometimes learn about the history or the ah or the artist themselves. So I enjoy that as well.
MacGuffins and Wealth in Art Mysteries
00:03:02
Speaker
I think this is a subgenre that utilizes the idea of a MacGuffin a lot. And we we've only talked briefly about MacGuffins, but these are defined by Alfred Hitchcock as an object, a device, or event that serves as the crucial plot device for to drive the story forward, but it's ultimately kind of unimportant or irrelevant in itself. And I think some examples are really helpful. So um not mystery world, but and i an example of a MacGuffin is like the one ring in the Lord of the Rings, um the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones, Pee-wee's bike in Pee-wee's Big Adventure. It like drives the story, but, you know, in the end, it's not...
00:03:52
Speaker
a real crucial thing. The Maltese Falcon is MacGuffin. And I think that we see that a lot. A lot of these stories are maybe that's dealing with the missing painting, but then the result is somebody dies and it becomes a murder mystery.
00:04:07
Speaker
um And so then the painting, although it kicked off the story, almost becomes irrelevant towards the end. You know, when I was thinking about books that I've read or or shows that I've watched that kind of feature um art or archaeology, often you get this insight into a world that is, you know,
00:04:35
Speaker
People who have a lot of money, there's often a lot of luxury, glitz and glitter. And, you know, it it can be very you're like you're almost rooting for the criminals sometimes in real life and in art crime.
00:04:49
Speaker
There often isn't a murder. Right. Someone goes into a gallery and and and and steals a painting. A lot of what we read, they incorporate a murder because that just drives the story forward a little bit.
00:05:00
Speaker
But, um you know, I thought about Arsène Lupin and A.J. Raffles, who we talked about in our Villains We Love episode. ah They were gentleman thieves and they their stories were published in the early twentieth century.
00:05:17
Speaker
as a reader, you're cheering for these bad guys, right? As they pull off these heists. ah And I, you know, I just, I just thought that was a really interesting feature of, of some of these stories.
Spy Thrillers and Art Restorer Sleuths
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah, you're right on. The um same thing that drew people to those manor house, drawing room, golden age mysteries, because it was a peek into this world of the, you know, very wealthy.
00:05:48
Speaker
It's kind of the same thing that I think draws us to these art and antiquity mysteries. um I, this week I read one of the Daniel Silva books and he writes about um a art restorer sleuth.
00:06:03
Speaker
And, um but he opens the book with a quote from f Scott Fitzgerald that says, let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. And this exactly what you were saying.
00:06:18
Speaker
Yeah, because, you know, I'm not going to have any um priceless art on my walls. and And, you know, I can't think of any of my friends who do.
00:06:29
Speaker
ah But we all kind of can recognize the names of people.
True Art Crime Stories
00:06:33
Speaker
famous artists and you know when I was ah doing a little bit of research for this episode i came across the name of Stefan Breitweiser don't know if if you came across him so um he was a French art thief and between 1996 and 2001 he stole pieces to build his own art collection like he just loved this art so much um And there was a book that was published in 2023 that I think I might try and read that detailed his crimes ah because his mother, apparently, when she heard that he was um being investigated, she destroyed a lot of the, a lot of his collection.
00:07:18
Speaker
um And one figure that I saw was that it was like a billion dollars. Oh, no. All these priceless pieces of art. Yes.
00:07:28
Speaker
Yes. And then I guess he was rearrested ah in 2015 or 2016 because they discovered that there were some other pieces that he had stolen. I guess he didn't he didn't confess to everything.
00:07:44
Speaker
Oh my goodness. It's a fascinating story. And so I think I would like to read a little bit more um about him, but ah you know, one of, in reading his story, I was reminded of a statement that was made in one of the books that I read that art crime and particularly dealing in forgeries and kind of this underground art market is like one of the biggest things criminal activities that happens in the world.
00:08:16
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, that's the other hand of it, right? You said this, this dealing these precious pieces of art, but the other side is the forgeries that take place. And that reminds me of a Netflix documentary. This is a 2020 show called Made You Look, a true story about fake art.
00:08:36
Speaker
And this is where um the Nodler Gallery in New York had forgers working for them and forged countless Rothko's Pollocks and other big names and fooled collectors for years and years. So these people have these paintings, you know, like, like you said, they're paying millions of dollars for these forgeries and, um, it and it finally came out. So, um, so many opportunities to utilize this very high value resource in
00:09:11
Speaker
yeah You're right, Brooke. There's just a lot of different elements that um can be drawn on to build a great mystery in this in this subgenre.
Archaeological Mysteries and Poirot
00:09:21
Speaker
Agatha Christie wrote Murder in Mesopotamia, which came out in 1936 and is set in ah in the Middle East.
00:09:32
Speaker
Hercule Poirot ends up um investigating when and ah woman is found dead in the kind of living quarters as part of as part of an archaeological dig.
00:09:46
Speaker
And I liked that story. i I think I'd read it a while ago, but I listened to a BBC radio play version of it. And and that was that was really fun. And one of the things that I really liked about the story is um that she throws a couple of Easter eggs in there.
00:10:03
Speaker
at the end, Poirot says that, um you know, he he deserves a vacation. So he's going to take the Orient Express.
00:10:11
Speaker
Oh, that's fantastic.
00:10:15
Speaker
That's great.
00:10:18
Speaker
um But these books are often set in places that, you know, I've never been. So I read a book called The Museum Detective, which was published this year in 2025 by Mahakhan Phillips.
00:10:31
Speaker
And it's set in Pakistan and features an arch archaeologist, an Egyptologist, who is brought on by the police when a mummy is found. The big thing is that there was no evidence that in Pakistan,
00:10:46
Speaker
that any mummies were were ever buried because it doesn't align with the with predominant religious beliefs. um But I really enjoyed this book.
00:10:57
Speaker
And it was, you know, super interesting to be immersed in a world that I've never visited. and I do really hope that it becomes a series. Yeah, that sounds fantastic. I love a good Egyptology-laced story. There's that learning, right? Especially when it's done well.
00:11:20
Speaker
Well, I think we often see a lot of these art mysteries as leaning towards the spy thrillers. That's certainly the case for the um Daniel Silva series that I mentioned.
00:11:35
Speaker
ah It's, he is, his sleuth is actually an ex-spy who has like tried to, you know, live a quiet life as an art restorer. And of course, adventures ensue.
Cozy and Domestic Art Mysteries
00:11:47
Speaker
But, you know, when I thought back to some of my reading, there are a lot of cozy mysteries that deal with art and collectibles as well. I think that that probably edges more towards that antiques that you were talking about.
00:12:00
Speaker
And, you know, Sarah, you and I both just recently read the Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder by C.L. Miller. And that's a great cozy ah example of a ah the anti an antique and art mystery.
00:12:14
Speaker
And um there's a series that I've watched a couple of episodes on i'm called Madame Blanc. And it's set in southern France in a community where there's several English expats.
00:12:26
Speaker
And she's an antique expert and her knowledge helps solve crime. So there's, you know, because they're in southern France, there's lot of older objects. And she ends up helping helping the police. It's definitely very light, you know, not something that you need to be super, super focused on when you're when when you're watching it. But, um you know, and it but it's set in southern France, so it's lovely to watch.
00:12:53
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. And if you like historical mysteries, I also thought of the Tasha Alexander series. Then the first book and only to deceive is very much an an art ah related mystery where she discovers these things about her um late husband's past and has to track down what really happened to these ancient art pieces.
00:13:18
Speaker
I did read more of a domestic thriller that ah centered around art theft and and art crime. And so this was The Paris Widow by Kimberly Bell, and it was released in 2024.
00:13:33
Speaker
So it's about a woman on the final day of a European holiday with her antique dealing husband. And just before they're supposed to leave for the Paris airport, there's an explosion and her husband goes missing.
00:13:47
Speaker
And she is thrown into investigating his life because the police tell her he's actually suspected of dealing in stolen works. And, you know, they have kind of kept their lives quite separate, but she has to unravel what is the what is the truth. And so it was um ah yet much more of a ah domestic thriller type novel.
00:14:10
Speaker
Wow. That could show up sometime as a what would you do title, Sarah. Great.
Gentleman Thieves in Literature
00:14:17
Speaker
GK Chesterton had a recurring character in several of his Father Brown short stories named Hercule Flambeau.
00:14:25
Speaker
And ah he also appears in at least one episode in each season of the TV series that um that you can watch. i've I've watched the the TV series and he is one of my favorite characters on the show.
00:14:40
Speaker
and You know, he pops in and out, um always some sort of um object that he's that he's after ah great example of a MacGuffin, I think, yeah in in these episodes.
00:14:52
Speaker
yeah And he's an example of that kind of gentleman thief that I was talking about before. That's great. And I just have to say, we know G.K. Chesterton and Agatha Christie were acquainted, and he has a sleuth with the same first name and a rhyming last name.
00:15:12
Speaker
There's got to be a connection there. We've got to we've got to look into that, Sarah. So I did i did look that up, Brooke, and there is a a very strong suggestion that Agatha Christie Sleuth was named after Chesterton's.
00:15:25
Speaker
Oh, that's so interesting.
Conclusion and Future of Art Mysteries
00:15:27
Speaker
Look at that little nugget you uncovered. Brooke, it has been so much fun to chat about antique and art mysteries with you. I think this is a subgenre that, have despite the size of the criminal element in real life, um doesn't get as much...
00:15:48
Speaker
ah I think there's more opportunity to explore it in in mystery books. I agree. And I hope that authors do it because I enjoy them very much.
00:15:59
Speaker
And we hope that you enjoyed today's episode too, listeners. Don't forget to go out and subscribe to our Clued In Chronicle, our semi-monthly newsletter, so you can stay clued in.
00:16:10
Speaker
But for today, i'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery. Clued in Mystery is written and produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen.
00:16:22
Speaker
Music is by Shane Ivers. If you liked what you heard, please consider telling a friend, leaving a review, or subscribing with your favorite podcast listening app. Visit our website to sign up for our newsletter, The Clued in Chronicle, and get mystery news, podcast updates, and bonus episodes.
00:16:38
Speaker
We're on social media at Clued in Mystery.