The Real Thing
by Marne Davis Kellogg
We are delighted to welcome mystery author Marne Davis Kellogg to Omnimystery News today.
Marne's fifth mystery in her "Kick Keswick" series is The Real Thing (Marne Davis Kellogg; November 2013 ebook formats) and we are pleased to introduce you to the book with an excerpt from the prologue and first two chapters.
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PROLOGUE
FROM THE TIME SHE WAS BORN IN 1958, Elena Griskanov never lacked for anything. At least anything more than anyone else lacked. She knew if she went hungry, her neighbor was hungry, too. But according to the Commissariat, no one in Russia would ever go hungry again. Everyone would always have enough. Enough to the commissars and enough to Elena would never be the same thing. Elena possessed the three characteristics essential to be the ideal Daughter of the Revolution: a high IQ, a bad attitude, and serious anger-management issues.
The fifties were good times in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, especially in Odessa, one of the republic's wealthiest, most beautiful, and most intriguing cities. Especially if you were a prodigy and had been selected at age nine to study at the Ukrainian Institute of Petroleum Engineering. She would never forget her father's face when the letter arrived confirming her admittance. Tears rolled into the grooves of his clenched and bristly cheeks. So much rode on the appointment — a better apartment for the family, more food. Everyone got more. The competition had been grueling, and he had coached her cruelly. She despised him.
As the first snowflakes of the season stung her cheeks, she moved across the city and into the Institute dormitory where she shared a room with two other girls. For the first time, Elena had her own bed instead of the pile of quilts on the living room floor she'd shared with her brothers while her grandmother snored on the lumpy couch.
In the years to come, as long as Elena kept her nose to the grindstone, the Commissariat continued to smile on the Griskanov household. There was the bigger apartment with a view of the harbor. The special stores stocked with fresh vegetables, Belgian chocolates, sable coats, French Champagne, and Italian shoes. No waiting in line to see the doctor. The students received two weeks' vacation a year, and on that break, when she was thirteen, Elena's eyes were opened to the reality of how completely she was being taken advantage of by her family. There they were, living a life of luxury while she lived in a foul-smelling dormitory, eating parsnip, onion, and potato soup for lunch and dinner. Resentment took root and bloomed as inexorably as the time-lapsed opening of a rose.
By the time Elena was fifteen, she, too, had bloomed into a beauty, with wavy, dark hair and inscrutable emerald eyes, and when she met Ivan Ivanov, a darkly handsome, muscle-bound, dumb-as-an-ox Tartar who worked on the docks at the oil terminal, she was ripe for the picking. He was twenty-three and lived on his own. He taught her several other things she could do besides study and watch her family get fat. Their infatuation was insatiable. Uncontained. Unmanageable. And hormones being what they are, they eloped. Elena was expelled.
Time passed. They had two sons, David and Grigory. And two daughters, Rada and Julia. Ivan couldn't believe his good fortune at how much his petite wife accomplished on his income. Poor Ivan. Handsome but dense. While he spent his days at the docks, she became a petty thief to supplement their income and was so adroit at the process that, before long, she was a broker in commercial stolen goods — appliances, cars, tractors — generating huge profits, all from her kitchen table with its antiquated telephone, ledger book, and uninterrupted view of the refinery and water treatment facility. Her children learned at her knee, first as petty thieves, then accomplices, then enforcers. Elena Ivanov was a force to be reckoned with. A woman who backed up her words with a Walther P38. Elena was a player.
In 1992, she established Ivanov Import/Export Company, which specialized in oil field equipment and, as a sidelight, stolen arms. In 1995, Ivan was shot point-blank in the face while drinking tea on his coffee break in a waterfront café. The murderer was never found.
ONE
THE TIMES: NEW SCOTLAND YARD DECLARES SHAMROCK BURGLAR CASE COLD
After decades of speculation on the identity of London's notorious Shamrock Burglar, New Scotland Yard issued a statement today that the jewelry burglar will no longer be actively sought.
"There has been no direct connection between the Shamrock Burglar and a theft for over ten years," the spokesman said, "in spite of the fact that there have been a number of copycat thefts in the United Kingdom and across the Continent. All of the legitimate victims have accepted insurance settlements against damages. As far as New Scotland Yard is concerned, the case is cold."
Since 1974, the Shamrock Burglar has captured the imagination of people worldwide. It is estimated that he stole more than £150 million in fine jewelry from many of London's wealthiest and most influential families, including members of the royal family. Twenty robberies were attributed to the Shamrock, who distinguished his crimes by placing a bouquet of shamrocks, tied with a satin ribbon, in the victim's open, pilfered, and empty safe. The break-ins almost always occurred while the victims were out for the evening or out of town, with the exception of the Templeton Glen Heist, when three couples, including the Duke and Duchess of Trafalgar, were robbed while they slept at the country home of Lord and Lady Templeton.
The theft of a bracelet from Carstairs Manor, home of the late Lady Melody Carstairs, was the work of an accomplished thief suspected to be the Shamrock, but it has never been proven. The bracelet originally belonged to Queen Victoria, and the Queen Mother gave it to Lady Melody as a thank-you for services rendered to the Empire, but, according to rumor, it was, in reality, to pay off the Queen Mum's substantial gambling debts. The theft wasn't discovered until the settling of Lady Carstairs's estate, when her solicitors were contacted by the royal family, who wished to purchase it back from the estate. At that time, a bouquet of dried and crumbling shamrocks was found in the back of Lady Carstairs's closet.
The Shamrock's last confirmed theft was thought to be the thief's largest haul, estimated to be as much as £15 million, from the safe of Sheiglah Winthrop Fullerton, widow of Sir Paul Fullerton and daughter of industrialist Sir Ishmael Winthrop. That was also the only time the Shamrock may have stolen something other than jewelry. A painting by Auguste Renoir, Polonaise Blanche, disappeared from the Fullerton residence that night and has never been recovered.
Over the years, a number of robberies on the Continent have been attributed to the Shamrock, including the theft of the Pink Elephant Diamonds from Mrs. Cameron Everett; the Empress Josephine's L'Empresse Emerald from the Musée Montpensier in Paris; the White Tiger Suite from the Hôtel Ritz in Paris; and the 203-carat DeBeers Millennium Star, the world's second-largest flawless diamond, from a private villa in Portofino where it was on display for a gala private party. However, these robberies were found to be copycats, and the pieces were quickly recovered.
An unconfirmed report claims that the Shamrock Burglar received a private pardon from Her Majesty for services rendered to the Crown. Those services are rumored to be the dangerous recovery by the Shamrock of many of the Queen's favorite jewels from a chalet in Switzerland where they had been taken after being stolen by one of Her Majesty's most trusted, longtime aides. This story is unconfirmed and unsubstantiated but exemplifies why the Shamrock Burglar was cast in the headlines as a romantic, even sympathetic, master criminal.
No one knows who the Shamrock is or where he has vanished to, but his capers had class and style. As one of his victims, who did not wish to be identified for this article, said, "Whilst one had the bad luck of being robbed, one at least had the good luck of knowing one had been robbed by the best."
TWO
I put the paper down and started laughing. This was rich. Wouldn't The Times and the tabloids have a field day if they ever discovered the Shamrock Burglar was a woman! I'm sure it never occurred to them.
I was sitting on my garden bench, enjoying the sunshine. I'd come out to clip rosemary and lavender sprigs to tuck around our late-afternoon meal. It was one of our favorite menus. Rack of lamb roasted with a glaze of orange marmalade, balsamic, and cayenne. Once the rack is cut into individual chops, they are like little candied lamb popsicles. I serve it with Parmesan polenta, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, and lemon chiffon cake for dessert. The combination of flavors is so extravagant you almost feel like crying. So that's what I was about.
It was a normal June day in Provence. Sunny and warm, with comfortable days and shortening shadows. You could feel summer's heat lurking right around the corner. Everything everywhere was still tender green — the leaves on the trees, the grasses on the hillsides, and the long rows of delicate lamb's lettuce that grew in the farmer's field next door. The sound of birdsong and fragrance of rose blossoms filled the air, which itself seemed to be green and tender and of such a perfect temperature it was as if there were no air at all.
In the corner of the apple orchard, big hunks of dirt shot from between the back legs of my West Highland white terrier, Bijou, who dug as though she were possessed after the vole that was destined always to stay one step ahead of her. Around the side of the house, my husband, Thomas, fussed over his roses. For months, the plants had been in exhaustive readiness. Pruned, clipped, fertilized, the earth precisely turned around the base of each to keep them moist but not so moist that their feet stayed wet. His beds of hybrids, banks of shrubs, and climbers over the garden gate and the kitchen and front doors fairly staggered with branches, swags, and stems of richly opened blooms and fat buds. The leaves bright green and crisp. He delicately sprinkled trowelfuls of sheep manure around the base of each one as though he were sprinkling it with holy water. Our caretaker, Pierre, was in the garage tinkering with the tractor. The entire valley was quiet and gentle, scented with early summer. Everything as it should be.
But truthfully? I wasn't thinking about lunch or rosemary or lavender. I was thinking about life. About life and death. About my life and death, to be specific. I wasn't getting any younger. We'd had a health scare with Thomas. Maybe it was time to make some changes.
So, when God spoke to me in the midst of this pastoral woolgathering, it scared the hell out of me.
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Photo provided courtesy of
Marne Davis Kellogg; Photo credit Peter M. Kellogg
Marne Davis Kellogg is the author of 11 mysteries, including the series of capers featuring Kick Keswick, the world's greatest jewel thief. In addition to her writing life, she is Executive Vice President of The Kellogg Organization, Inc. Marne and her husband, Peter, live in Denver and on their Colorado ranch in the summertime where she cooks the decadent meals found in her books.
Marne and Peter visit England, France and Italy at least once a year where they research Kick and Thomas's environs to make certain they're as accurately portrayed as possible.
For more information about the author and her work, please visit her website at MarneDavisKellogg.com or find her on Facebook.
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The Real Thing
Marne Davis Kellogg
A Kick Keswick Mystery (5th in series)
