From a Q & A with Carson Morton about his new novel,
Stealing Mona Lisa:
Q: How did you come up with the idea to write Stealing Mona Lisa?
A: I had come across the story of the theft a few times in the past and stored it away in the back of my mind, not giving it much thought. It was while I was reading Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, where the incident is mentioned in passing that the idea sparked. I did some research and found the actual story was not all that interesting. Someone just walked in and took it off the wall. There was an apocryphal story about a mastermind trying to sell six copies, but there still wasn’t what I call a complete story. I set myself the task of turning all the existing information into a yarn with a beginning, middle, and end; and making sure it had all the necessary ingredients: a protagonist, an antagonist, allies, enemies, and most of all, a motive other than greed that the reader would be able to empathize with; and if that motive happens to be the love of a beautiful woman…
Q: Who is your favorite character in your novel and why?
A: Besides the obvious choice of the mastermind himself, the Marquis de Valfierno, I think my favorite is Julia Conway, the brash and beautiful American pickpocket who proves invaluable in the scheme to steal the world’s greatest painting and sell six copies to six American Robber Barons. Her only fault is...[read on]
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--Marshal Zeringue