Some of the characters in the following novels are a criminal mastermind, an imposter, a rodeo bulldogger and a middle-age woman looking for love from a man half her age. From Rome and New York City to Washington, DC and Wadsworth, Ohio, these stories take the reader all over the world in search of antiques as well as adventure.
The Vatican Rip, by Jonathan Gash
First published in the United Kingdom in 1981, this tale takes the reader inside the Vatican. Antiques dealer Lovejoy is forced into a scheme to steal a Chippendale table from it, and the lives of his friends are at stake if he doesn’t play along. He takes lessons in Italian from a beautiful young woman and then meets an old lady con artist in Rome. According to Library Journal, Lovejoy has a “short temper, few scruples, and an obsession with antiques.” His plans for the theft are original and fascinating, making for a suspenseful and interesting novel.
Ticknor & Fields, 1982 ISBN 0-140064-31-1
Cadillac Jack, by Larry McMurtry
A former rodeo bulldogger named Jack is the dubious hero of this novel. He roams around America in a “pearl-colored Cadillac with peach velour interior”, looking for antiques that he can resell to collectors. The only problem with Jack’s “business plan” is the small matter of a mid-life crisis that has him juggling old wives and new girlfriends in the lecherous environment of Washington, D.C. The West Coast Review of Books says the “sheer exuberance of McMurtry’s imagination makes this book worth reading.”
Simon & Schuster, 1982 ISBN 0-67145-445-5
Rightfully Mine, by Doris Mortman
The heroine in this novel is a divorcee from Wadsworth, Ohio who pretends to be a sophisticated antiques dealer when she moves to New York and succeeds in becoming the toast of the town. Booklist sums up the plot this way: “Gaby’s career path is made rockier by a rift with her teenage son, the renewed interest of her ex-husband, her precarious position vis-à-vis old enemies, and a frantic search for an ancient French tapestry.” Her expertise with antiques is real, gained from her French aunt, but everything else about her is fabricated in this fast-moving tale.
Bantam Books, 1989 ISBN 0-553-05376-0
The Sweet Dove Died, by Barbara Pym
A complex middle-aged woman named Leonora Eyre attracts the attention of a wealthy antique dealer named Humphrey. Leonora’s vanity prods her to believe that Humphrey’s 24-year old nephew James is a better catch for her, and she proceeds to win him over. To get her way, however, she must deal with Humphrey’s affections as well as with James’ other girlfriends. According to Publisher’s Weekly, “Pym’s extraordinary vision of an ordinary world wherein she details the intricacies of loneliness, the ditherings of hesitating souls, the comedies of errors, sexual and asexual, makes this a little masterpiece.”
Dutton, 1979 ISBN 0-525-21318-X
Antiques and antique dealers are fascinating to many people, and reading stories about them offers a small window into this fascinating world.
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