Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

Museums offer art, rich history, cultural experiences, and more to their patrons. They allow researchers to do their work, too. The thing about museums, though, is that they may have extremely valuable objects and pieces of work. And that makes them vulnerable to thieves. So, it’s no wonder that museums feature in crime fiction. There are a lot of examples in the genre; I’ll just mention a few.

In Aaron Elkins’ Fellowship of Fear, we are introduced to Gideon Oliver, a cultural anthropologist based in the US state of Washington. As the story opens, Oliver travels to Europe to give a series of guest lectures to students at the United States Overseas College (USOC), which serves enlisted personnel and their families. Oliver plans nothing more than to give his lectures, do some sightseeing, and then return home. Instead, he’s drawn into an international web of espionage and murder. At one of his lecture stops in Spain, he arranges for his students to take a private, guided tour of a local museum. When they arrive, they’re informed that the museum is closed. Things take a much more sinister turn when Oliver learns that there are two bodies in the museum. There’s another murder, too, that occurs just outside another museum on this leg of Oliver’s lecture tour. In this case, museums turn out to be not such safe places.

Ian Rankin’s Doors Open is a standalone that features wealthy Mike Mackenzie, his friend, Allan Cruikshank, a local gangster called Chib Calloway, and art professor Robert Gissing. Together, they devise a plan to rob the Scottish National Museum of some of its more valuable pieces and replace them with forgeries created by one of Gissing’s art students. They choose the museum’s Doors Open day, when the warehouses and some other parts of the museum are open to visitors. Plans are made, and the theft is actually carried out. But Mackenzie and his co-conspirators will soon learn that it’s one thing to steal a piece of art; it’s quite another to actually profit from it.

China Trade is S.J. Rozan’s first novel to feature her detective duo of Chin Ling Wan-ju, who goes by the name Lydia Chin, and her business partner Bill Smith. In the novel, Lydia is contacted by Nora Yin, who is with Chinatown Pride (CP), a local museum. Recently, the museum received a very valuable donation of a set of porcelain pieces from the widow of a wealthy collector. The museum staff hasn’t had time to sort and display the collection, so it was being stored in boxes in the museum’s basement. And that’s the problem. Two boxes of the porcelain have been stolen. The museum staff doesn’t want the story to get publicity, since it will harm the museum’s reputation, possibly permanently. So, the CP wants to hire Lydia to find out what happened to the porcelain. There are several possibilities, including gangs who extort ‘lucky money’ from businesses. The museum staff members have to be considered, too, as does anyone else who has access. It’s not going to be an easy case, and it puts Lydia in danger as she and Bill Smith investigate.

In Iaian Pears’ The Raphael Affair, General Taddeo Botando is the head of the Italian National Art Theft Squad. He and his team are responsible for recovering any stolen art and prosecuting the thieves. He gets a strange case when an English tourist, graduate student Jonathan Argylle, tells an odd story. Argylle’s doing his doctoral work on a little-known artist named Carlo Mantini. He believes that a Maintini painting may be covering up a Raphael painting. By the time Botando and Argylle can check, though, the painting has been sold. Even after the painting is returned, there’s controversy. This painting may actually cover up a forged Raphael, with the real one gone missing. It’s a tangled case that leads to high places and real danger for Botando and Argylle as they search for the real Raphael, if there is one.

Ausma Zehnat Kahn’s The Unquiet Dead features Inspector Esa Khattak and Sergeant Rachel Getty of the Community Policing Section (CPS) of the Canadian federal government. In the novel, Khattak and Getty are asked to investigate the death of Christopher Darayton, who died after a fall from Scarborough (Ontario) Bluffs. At first, it doesn’t seem like the sort of case the CPS would investigate, since they typically focus on hate crimes and anti-bigotry work. But then, they’re told that Drayton may actually have been Dražen Krstić, a notorious war criminal known as the butcher of Srebrenica. If he is, then the Canadian government will have a lot to answer for, since a war criminal was allowed to live there. It’s a difficult case, but Khattak and Getty begin their investigation. One trail leads to Ringsong, a museum designed to celebrate the art, music, and culture of Andalusia. Drayton wanted to be on the museum’s board of directors and had made a substantial donation. But there are people who weren’t happy about his involvement. As the two detectives learn about this museum, readers go behind the scenes to see how a museum is staffed and funded, and how it acquires pieces.

Museums really are fascinating places. And whatever your interest (sports, music, art, etc.), you’re likely to find a museum that celebrates it. But be careful if you do. You never know what may happen…

ps. The photo is of a Joan Miró sculpture, taken at Madrid’s Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. It’s a fantastic museum if you ever get the chance to visit.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Tiny Ruins’ Me at the Museum, You in the Wintergarden.