Charlesgate Confidential

July 15, 2018
Wondering who pulled off the never-solved 1990 heist at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which netted the thieves the richest haul still unrecovered in the history of art theft? Von Doviak's waggish debut has the answer to this question--and much, much more.In 1946, according to Von Doviak, two fake cops who gained admittance to the museum late one night along with their confederates make off with a collection of 13 artworks by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and more, worth an estimated $500 million. Despite intensive investigation and a well-publicized, high-figure reward, the case remains unsolved in 1986, when Tommy Donnelly, a student living in Emerson College's Charlesgate student residence, a former hotel with a colorful history, sets out to write Charlesgate Confidential, a history of the place, and swiftly finds links between the Charlesgate, which in its day hosted everything from Jimmy Dryden's stable of prostitutes (sixth floor) to Dave T's high-stakes poker game (eighth floor) and the storied robbery. The most intriguing link: Days before the robbery, three gunmen swooped down on Dave T's, made off with the proceeds, and returned shortly after the robbery to execute Fat Dave, the Red Room Lounge bartender who identified them to their victim, whom he calls "Other Dave," leading to the conscription of one of the gunmen as a fake cop in the museum robbery and his violent death. In 2014--are you still following this?--a reunion of Tommy Donnelly's Emerson class spearheaded by classmate Jackie St. John digs even deeper into the past, which has now gotten pretty doggone deep.Instead of presenting these three narrative layers in chronological order, Von Doviak cuts constantly from one to the other in a wildly inventive fantasia spiced with frequent revelations of new crimes and new solutions. The only downside: The last round of revelations doesn't carry any more weight than the others.

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July 16, 2018
An art heist turns treasure hunt for a motley crew of Boston crooks, cops, and college students in Van Doviak’s highly entertaining debut, which moves the infamous 1990 robbery of Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to 1946, then jumps ahead chapter by chapter to 1986 and 2014 and back again. In 1946, at the seedy real-life Charlesgate Hotel in Back Bay, Dave T’s illegal card game is held up by the Devlin brothers—and Dave realizes he has found a couple of patsies for the heist. Forty years later, college reporter Tommy Donnelly begins a history series on his dorm building, formerly the Charlesgate. And in the refurbished high-end condos of the 2014 Charlesgate, tenant Jackie St. John Osborne decides she would like the multimillion-dollar reward for the return of the stolen paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, and company. Smooth, often funny dialogue more than compensates for some left-field plot developments. Plenty of Red Sox references—it’s Beantown, Jake—add to the appeal of this era-bending caper novel.

Starred review from August 1, 2018
In 1946, a Boston art museum is relieved of a dozen works of high-value art. Some of the thieves are killed, some arrested, and some disappear, but the art is never recovered. In 1986, a college student staying at the Charlesgate, a Boston hotel now repurposed as a student dorm, learns about the '46 heist from an old man who may have been involved. The kid is intrigued, and the heist becomes a hobby. Move forward to 2014. The Charlesgate has gone condo, and a real-estate agent has her neck snapped. The secret to the original art theft is tied to the Charlesgate, but how? Did the thieves stash the loot there? Is it still there? How does the real-estate agent figure into it? Von Doviak bases his plot on a 1990 art theft from Boston's Gardner Museum, which is also unsolved, but he adds texture by moving the crime back to the black-and-white forties?a nice noir shading?and alternating chapters with the Technicolor eighties and the modern digital age. It all works well, with dialogue and cultural reference reflecting the different eras. Using the ups and downs of the Boston Red Sox as ambient background noise is a wonderful touch, too. An all-around superior thriller. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)