Ellen Crosby's Dodge and Burn

 

By Margaret S. Hamilton

 

‘There’s one I especially remember,’ I said. ‘It was exquisite, the Virgin of Vladimir. * The frame was gold and silver—beautiful, intricate carving—encrusted with rubies and sapphires and emeralds…Maybe twelve by sixteen inches’…

 

 ‘It came from a small Orthodox church outside Kiev,’ he said. ‘It’s been missing since the beginning of the war. The icon probably dates to the thirteenth century. It was a gift to the church from Peter the Great, though originally it came from Constantinople. Not long after it was installed in the church, people who came to pray before it started believing the Virgin and Child were responsible for certain miracles. People were healed from life-threatening illnesses, wounds were cured, a cancer diagnosis suddenly went away.’ (p.97)

 

Modern reproduction of the Virgin of Vladimir

Ellen Crosby’s intrepid photojournalist sleuth, Sophie Medina, has returned in Dodge and Burn, the fourth book in the series. Sophie spots the famous icon hidden in a vault of a photography client’s home and tells her newly discovered half-brother Danny. She later discovers her client dead and the icon missing.

 

The police consider Sophie a person of interest. Sophie wonders if her half-brother is involved in either the theft or the murder. The victim was a well-known art collector and benefactor. Danny works for an organization locating stolen works of art and “facilitating” a return to their rightful owners.

 

In Dodge and Burn, Sophie teeters on a tightrope of legal and ethical dilemmas. The Virgin of Vladimir was stolen from a Ukrainian church and should be repatriated. But not while the war continues. The murder victim had a sizeable art collection of dubious provenances. Had the art collector knowingly purchased stolen works of art? Would loaning them to public museums for display justify the collector’s actions? Would it provide authentication for artwork of unknown origin?

 

As Sophie plunges deeper into a morass of lies and deceptions, some of her closest friends come to her aid—several journalists and her Jesuit confidant, Father Jack O’Hara. Other friends help her identify the murderer and with police assistance, arrest him.

 

The plot was a bit jumbled, but I enjoyed Crosby’s well-researched settings during the Washington, D.C. cherry blossom season, especially the restaurants. In this book, we learn more about Sophie’s mother and her first marriage to Sophie’s late father, a Real Madrid soccer player. Sophie consults a fictionalized version of a database listing stolen art worldwide, seeking information about Ukrainian icons stolen during the 2022 Russian invasion. **

 

Sophie Media is approaching forty, widowed, with sufficient means to support her photography for outreach projects in DC. I’m curious where her next escapade will take her—art, photography, gardens, architecture, or even horse-breeding. As Sophie continues to zoom around DC on her mint green Vespa, I’m sure it will be an entertaining topic, relevant to present-day politics and world affairs.

 

Readers and writers, do you enjoy reading about art theft and the stolen art market?

 

*The original Virgin of Vladimir icon is in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

**In 2023, sixteen rare Ukrainian icons were secretly transported from a museum in Kiev to Paris. Five are currently on display at the Louvre, the others awaiting conservation at a Louvre facility outside of Paris.

cherry blossom photos: Lizzie Albers