Sheila Sharpe
Artist, Lover, Forger,Thief
Once I began reading about the fascinating world of art forgery, I could not stop. Soon, I ran out of books on the subject. Time to write your own, I concluded. This scarcity surprised me given no authentic masterpiece arouses as much passion as the discovery of great art forgery. A recent example is the uproar caused when Leonardo’s lost and rediscovered masterpiece, Salvadore Mundi, proved to be a fake (after selling for $450.3 million.) Now that we live in what’s been called “The Golden Age of Fakes,” art forgery is receiving increased attention in the news and in books. A Broadway musical has even been proposed.
Before B.A. Shapiro’s groundbreaking The Art Forger in 2012, non-fiction books dominated the genre, and I found no women writing or publishing art forgery fiction. Perhaps the subject seemed too daunting or masculine. But once Shapiro opened the door, I rushed through it with several innovative women writers. Steeped in the art world, psychology, and crime fiction, I’ve found research and writing this novel endlessly rewarding. My story deepened when I decided the heroine should be Kate Devlin, the therapist protagonist in Locked in a Box, the prequel to Artist, Lover, Forger, Thief. Kate also appears in my short story, Field of Gold (included in the STORIES section).
I based my male protagonist, Nick McCoy, on aspects of the two most famous and intriguing British forgers: Tom Keating, known as the beloved Robin Hood of art crime, and Eric Hebborn, the enfant terrible who fooled the art world with his phenomenal talent and trickery.
CHAPTER ONE
A bad forgery is the ultimate insult.
—John Grant
Monday, October 10, 2023
When Nick McCoy spotted the sultry nude reclining on the red divan across the gallery, his heartbeat quickened. But as he moved closer to the propped-up painting, his excitement fizzled.
“Ninety-five million for this babe,” Steele said.
Nick looked from the painting on the easel to his wealthiest client. Squat, with a lumpy bald head, and shrewd pinpoint eyes, Dixon Steele was the worst kind of crook—a blood-sucking hedge fund billionaire. Nick was tempted to stick the old vulture with the mediocre forgery, but that might screw up his larger scheme.
“Is she worth it?” Steele said.
“Not if you want a Modigliani. Your babe is a fraud.”
“How can you tell?”
“The low price is a flag. Modigliani nudes are rare; one recently sold for a hundred and fifty-seven million. Then there’s the artistry, the feeling. Does she turn you on?”
“I’m sixty-eight, young man. Takes more than a plastic bimbo to move my flesh.”
“Plastic—there’s your answer. Modigliani was a sensualist. You feel that in every line, color, and texture of his paintings. This is the plodding work of Elmer de Hory, the phony Hungarian count.”
Steele turned the bogus nude toward the wall, then strutted around the gallery, inspecting the cream of his priceless collection. The arrogant ass flaunted his ugliness like a weapon; he even got off on repulsing people. Nick felt disgusted but also intrigued. It was easy to picture Steele as a boy scaring other kids with his Godzilla act. Nick could have used this attitude to face down his boyhood tormentors. Instead, to his shame, he ran away and hid in museums.
Nick touched his right cheek. The hideous burn scars were gone thanks to plastic surgery, just a slight discoloration and tightness near his right ear. Some considered him handsome now, but the face he saw in the mirror still looked foreign to him—the reddish-brown result of Spanish, Black, and Celtic blood. More familiar was his self-image as the freak, still alive inside him, seeming to become more repulsive with age like the picture of Dorian Gray.
Nick shifted his attention to the masterpieces glowing on the canvas-colored walls. Focusing on Degas’ elegant Ballet at the Paris Opera, he let the dramatic lighting and glittering swirl of pastels lift him out of his dark thoughts.
As Steele lumbered across his sight line, Nick got a whiff of his abrasive pine-scented aftershave.
Steele stopped before his most prized painting, The Blue Room by Picasso. Stepping next to him, Nick looked at the lithe, naked beauty giving herself a sponge bath in her shades-of-blue bedroom. She reminded him of Raquel, Steele’s wife and his lover. Imagining the crude bastard’s fleshy mitts touching her delicate skin sent a biting rage through him, soon followed by a crushing sense of guilt over his inability to protect Raquel or return her love. If he could love anyone, it would be an unattainable woman like Kate Devlin, who's haunted his dreams for the past three years.
“Hey Pablo, you’re still the cock,” Steele gave the work a thumbs up. Moving on to Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, he gave this popular masterpiece a less vigorous thumbs up.
Then he sneered at the next painting, jabbing his thumb down. “This one’s weak. Let’s get rid of it.”
“Weak?” Nick had to squash this idea. “You’re looking at the late, great Monet, one of his famous water lily pond paintings.
“It’s too airy-fairy, and there’s too many lilies. I want no pink flowers in The Man’s Lair.” He thumped his chest. “Listen, my boy; I want to feel young; I have a young wife to service. I need bold, virile paintings around me-injections of vitality.”
Nick knew this Monet was a better than average Tom Keating forgery. The work could raise questions and put him in the spotlight. But, so far, he’d managed to elude the FBI and Scotland Yard, and he’d finally gotten into an influential position close to Steele after decades of maneuvering. He owed Raquel for helping him secure the art conservator’s job at the Steele Museum and paving his way to becoming Steele’s principal consultant on all his art purchases, trades, and sales. At last, he was in the perfect position to strike. Don’t blow it now!
Locked in a Box
(A soon to be marketed prequel to Artist, Lover, Forger, Thief)
Kate Devlin deals in secrets, lies, and betrayals. She’s a psychologist, an expert at digging up everyone’s dirt but her own—until she uncovers her opera star father’s murder. Trapped in an elevator, she flashes back to the night he died at the Metropolitan Opera. She sees him dressed for the last act of Carmen, her ten-year-old voice yelling, “I hate you.” Despite her dread of unearthing the past, suspicion of her own guilt compels Kate to investigate.
When Elise Devereaux, her abused client disappears, Kate also pursues this case with Francisco Flynn, a half-Apache private eye. At a fringe trauma center in the Anza Borrego Desert, Kate confronts the infamous Dr. Julius Cade for his dangerous treatment of her father’s PTSD. Detecting her claustrophobia, Cade lures her into his face your fears labyrinth.
The dark walls closing in, Kate panics, reliving her near death in a locked prop box the night of the murder. Had she seen the killer?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: Booklife Prize Review for unpublished manuscripts
"This is an exceptionally clever psych thriller where almost no one is who they seem: there are plenty of suspects. Most compelling, however, is not the identity of the perpetrator, but the motive itself…Enigmatic circumstances and an exploration of trauma provide uncommon depth and nuance."
CHAPTER ONE
La Jolla, California, 2009
The day I fell out of the sky, I landed at the scene of my father’s death. The wind was too strong for paragliding that afternoon, but fierce winds never stopped a hotshot like me. This day, the tenth of April, always brought trouble. But instead of cocooning in the refuge of home or my hermetically sealed office, I was running towards the edge of Torrey Pines Bluff, exhilarated and terrified. Would I plummet into the sea three hundred feet below?
At the brink, I leaped into space, my yellow wing sweeping me high in the air.
Hallelujah, I can fly!
Turning south, I rode the ridge lift along the sandstone bluffs whiskered with dark green patches of chaparral. No longer Dr. Kate Devlin, the gray-suited psychologist, I was an exotic, yellow-winged bird soaring in the sky. The wind gusted, and a cold blast knocked me sideways. Even in Southern California, April was the cruelest month, and this day—the anniversary of my father’s death—always felt the harshest.
The sky darkened, the gusts stronger. I sensed a storm coming. Or my thunder-voiced father—his restless ghost haunting me still. I could hear the rumble of his deep baritone in the roar of the wind. Would I never be free of him? I’d managed to forget almost everything about him, except the dark thrill of his world-renowned voice.
A sudden gust slammed into my wing. I could feel it shuddering. The glider began to spin out of control.
Focus. Hands steady on the controls. Increase speed.
Raising the control toggles, I zoomed higher and a strong lift sent me soaring way up. Below, the ocean spread out like a giant sheet of metal. The sky was turning an ominous gray. I glanced overhead. Oh my God! A monster cumulus cloud loomed right above my wing, sucking me into the swirling mist. In moments I’d be a rag-doll, tossed around blinded.
Dodging that fate, I plunged into steep spiral turns. The icy air whipped around me, tore at my jacket, numbed my hands. Spiraling faster, I lost my bearings, sky and sea merging, a blur of gray-white light.
Slow your turns. My hands froze on the controls.
Whirling down. Seconds to impact, the crash fatal on water-turned-rock.
Stop the spiral!
