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Pantera Presserschienen am01.07.2022
When art conservator JJ Jego spots a long-lost masterpiece through the window of a luxury apartment, she's drawn into a dark web of intrigue, deception and murder. JJ spies what she believes is a priceless Van Gogh. Except it can't be ... that painting, Six Sunflowers, was destroyed during World War II. She also glimpses what looks like a Rembrandt, one stolen in the infamous 1990 robbery at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston. JJ sets out on a mission to discover if these works are fakes or genuine. But when she gets in too deep, she is forced to seek help from her estranged father, a Sydney detective. From the pubs of Belfast to the boardrooms of Monte Carlo and the shores of Sydney Harbour, this gripping art heist thriller exposes a shadowy underworld where JJ crosses paths with a global organised crime empire in her pursuit to solve some of art history's biggest mysteries.

John M. Green is the author of Framed, Double Deal, The Tao Deception, The Trusted, Born to Run and Nowhere Man. He left his day job as a banker two years before the global financial crisis - enough of a lag so no one could accuse him of starting the whole mess! Today, he straddles writing, business and philanthropy. He's a director of several organisations, listed and unlisted, including cyber-security, financial services, engineering, publishing and not-for-profits. He lives in Sydney with his wife, the sculptor Jenny Green.mehr

Produkt

KlappentextWhen art conservator JJ Jego spots a long-lost masterpiece through the window of a luxury apartment, she's drawn into a dark web of intrigue, deception and murder. JJ spies what she believes is a priceless Van Gogh. Except it can't be ... that painting, Six Sunflowers, was destroyed during World War II. She also glimpses what looks like a Rembrandt, one stolen in the infamous 1990 robbery at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston. JJ sets out on a mission to discover if these works are fakes or genuine. But when she gets in too deep, she is forced to seek help from her estranged father, a Sydney detective. From the pubs of Belfast to the boardrooms of Monte Carlo and the shores of Sydney Harbour, this gripping art heist thriller exposes a shadowy underworld where JJ crosses paths with a global organised crime empire in her pursuit to solve some of art history's biggest mysteries.

John M. Green is the author of Framed, Double Deal, The Tao Deception, The Trusted, Born to Run and Nowhere Man. He left his day job as a banker two years before the global financial crisis - enough of a lag so no one could accuse him of starting the whole mess! Today, he straddles writing, business and philanthropy. He's a director of several organisations, listed and unlisted, including cyber-security, financial services, engineering, publishing and not-for-profits. He lives in Sydney with his wife, the sculptor Jenny Green.
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9780645350821
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Erscheinungsjahr2022
Erscheinungsdatum01.07.2022
Seiten384 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse2558
Artikel-Nr.11934198
Rubriken
Genre9200

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe

2
JJ Jego
Sydney, Australia
2015

My parents - Lauren and Hugh Jego - only had one clash in their twenty-seven years together, one that lasted their entire marriage.

After putting up with Hugh s ⦠well, Hugh s everything ⦠Lauren finally walked out on him. It was on 1 January 2014. A new year and a new life, I heard through her sobs when she phoned to tell me.

Yet, so soon after her liberation , as she called it, here we are in a hospital though, in her case, she s barely here.

Hugh, her husband - they never got divorced - isn t here.

Of course he s not.

Tears cascade down my cheeks, filling the dimple in my chin and dripping onto her pillow, grey splotches spreading across the white cotton. It s less than two years after they separated, and four months after she got the diagnosis ⦠stage four pancreatic cancer.

Did Hugh come running, like any decent human being would? No. He didn t even contact her. Not even a measly text.

For twenty-seven years she d been devoted to the prickly narcissist, giving up her career in fashion to pander to his every want. She cooked for him, cleaned up for him, cleaned up after him, and apologised for him when he offended people - which was most of the time. Yet, because she had the audacity to leave him, he snapped his fingers and magicked her into a nothing, a footnote in his history.

I can almost hear his thoughts. How could she walk out on me, a genius who knows better than everybody else, God s gift to the police force?

The truth is that Lauren was an angel to have stayed with Hugh so long. Some people would blame her for not leaving him earlier, but they hadn t spent decades as a victim of his vainglory and Machiavellian flair for manipulation. We both kidded ourselves that we went along with Hugh s wishes - a euphemism for demands - out of love. There was some love, for sure, but mostly there was fear ⦠a Mount Everest of fear, and we had no Sherpas to help us navigate it. There was no physical abuse. But if we d known today s language for what Hugh put us through - coercive control, psychological trauma - both our lives might have been different. Better.

In my eighteen years under their roof, I struggled with what Hugh did to us. When mean kids at school found out he was a cop, they d say, My dad can still beat up your dad, and I d clasp my hands and politely say, Please.

To people who lived outside our suffocating four walls, Hugh was sweet and charming, kind of like Prince Harry before he met Meghan Markle. Eventually, though, if they committed the crime of laughing at the wrong time or daring to disagree with him over something - no matter how trivial - they d watch his Mr Nice Guy mask drip away to reveal the trademark sneer my mother and I wished we d never seen.

One time, a fellow detective came over for high tea, a speciality of Lauren s. She presented it on the faux Limoges china she d bought at the op shop, and Hugh had made her pipe her famous cupcakes with icing that spelled our surname, Jego. When Hugh went to the bathroom and Lauren was in the kitchen, the detective, with a cheeky look, held up one of the cakes and told me my father s nickname at work, Huge Ego . I laughed so much I got a stitch, though I made sure it wasn t loud enough for Hugh to hear me through the door.

In my last year at high school, Hugh went undercover and we didn t see him for months. Frankly, it was bliss at home, and probably the reason I blitzed the HSC and won a scholarship to art school. But when the operation was over, we found out he d almost single-handedly broken up a notorious drug ring, which included senior police. The trials of Mr Big and Detective Inspector Bigger made front-page news for weeks. Hugh, referred to only as Witness G6, gave the crucial evidence that sent them all down but he had to do it from behind a screen, and Lauren and I were forbidden from telling a soul it was him. It was the first and only time I was actually proud of my father, and I had to bottle it up.

During the sting, he d got hooked on crystal meth, and after the criminals were sent down, the force put him on extended leave and sent him to rehab. Hugh came home cured , but was even more insufferable than before, not least because he was denied the celebrity he so obviously craved.

The sad thing is that all that drama gave Lauren yet another reason to stay, even when I told her I was going. You go, she said, meaning it. But how can I leave him after what the poor man s put himself through?

Me, though, I slammed the door on Hugh as soon as I finished my final exams and, apart from a chance run-in - at the National Gallery in Canberra in 2010 - I haven t seen him since.

*

We ve just landed in Sydney, I whispered to the nurse an hour ago, surreptitiously, under my sweater. It was before the cabin crew announced we were free to use our phones.

Being sneaky while crammed in economy - or coach or tourist, or whatever the back of the plane is called these days - isn t easy. Especially when you re in the centre seat of three, with a hulk of a man on one side, so well upholstered I couldn t see the window past him even if I leaned forward. On my other side, a tall, gawky teenager who was so sprawly that shared armrest clearly meant his .

Because of my mother s decline, I d actually said no to this work trip, a four-day Van Gogh conference in Amsterdam - all expenses paid by my employer, the Art Gallery of New South Wales - but she d insisted. It s good for your career and, besides, you ll only be gone a week. The hospital staff had told me she was stable, that it was safe to go, and promised to call me if anything changed.

That happened yesterday, on day two of the conference, right in the middle of an eye-opening talk by an Italian expert, Francesca Rossi, on The Degradation Process of Chrome Yellow in Paintings by Vincent van Gogh Studied by Means of Synchrotron X-ray Spectromicroscopy . After quietly apologising to everyone around me, I ran out of the conference room, grabbed my bag from the hotel, leapt into a cab and changed my return flight as we sped to Schiphol Airport.

Thank heavens you ve made it home, said the nurse. Come straight to the hospital. No detours. Do you understand what I m telling you, JJ?

*

Everyone calls me JJ. It s short for Justine Jego, pronounced Jaygo. This is because, four generations ago, it was Jégo when our people lived in Arles, in the south of France. Hugh bestowed my full name on me, in all its toe-curling glory. Needless to say, he put it on my birth certificate without asking Mum.

The only times I d be willing to give my full name to anyone is if I was being waterboarded or if I ve got to comply with some government requirement, which can be much the same thing. I got more than a lifetime s ribbing in Year 3 after my teacher, Miss Fox, asked about it in front of the whole class. Justine Vincent van Gogh Jego. That s a fascinating name, JJ. Can you tell us about it?

I shrank into my seat, making myself even smaller than I was.

It s why I ve gone with JJ my whole life. Even - or especially - in my career as an art conservator, I ve concealed my full name better than Caravaggio s miniature self-portrait in his painting Bacchus. That s the one he camouflaged in a carafe that virtually every art teacher makes a big song and dance about revealing to newbies in Art History 101.

I raced off the plane, and charged through the airport to the taxi rank as fast as my short legs, cabin-sized wheelie bag, ever-present camera flying on its strap behind me, and border control protocols allowed.

Carrying an almost empty Australian passport helped. No stamps from Syria, Somalia or any hotspots and just the two for Amsterdam, three years apart. From my passport photo, or even in real life, people would probably say I m pretty average looking. That s if you ignore my flaming red hair and my lack of height. I come in at five foot, child inches. Kind of like Lady Gaga in a red wig, but without her heels, looks or talent.

Hugh used to tell me I was so small that if I d been born in winter I wouldn t have made it through. He frequently saddled me with reminders like Tiny silhouette, tiny brain, even before I knew what a silhouette was. Poring through a dictionary to find out was no easy feat for a dyslexic, making it even easier for Hugh to enjoy proving his put-downs.

Dyslexia did have a good side. While reading is tough for me, even today - thank heavens for audiobooks and text-to-speech buttons - images have always come easily. Hence, art became my refuge. Initially, my passion was for photography. Ultimately, it led to my job as a conservator.

Unsurprisingly, given our family s Van Gogh connection, my love of art was the one thing about me that Hugh was happy about. His full name is similar to mine - Hugh Vincent van Gogh Jego - but, unlike me, he boasts about it. Yes, I can still hear him intoning on automatic pilot,...
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