The Last Mona Lisa written by Jonathan Santloffer is an adult novel version of the same story that I reviewed earlier.. The Mona Lisa Vanishes, a young adult non fiction book.
Interestingly both of these books were required reading at the same time. I read the non fiction account first and judged this fictionalized story against the facts I had just learned. This historical fiction version holds up quite well and adds a little mystery and suspense to the story.
We bring in a modern day young man, Luke Perrone, the great grandson of Vincenzo Peruggia, the man who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum back in 1911. The book takes us back and forth between the actual series of events that led to Peruggia stealing the painting and how it altered his life and the modern day intrigue around a diary that may have been left by Vincenzo that Luke is trying to trace and the story of whether the painting hanging in the Louvre today is the original or a fake. There are others who also are interested in finding out the same information and Luke is in a race to get the information first before too many die, including himself.
As I said it is an entertaining mystery story and does stick quite close to the facts of history.
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