Unravel the Gripping Mystery of “The Paris Widow” by Kimberly Belle

The Paris Widow by Kimberly Belle

Kimberley Belle has written a masterful, highly original fast-paced thriller The Paris Widow that keeps the reader guessing until the final chapter. Art thieves, dodgy antique dealers, smugglers, assassins, the FBI Art Crime Team and Interpol all co-mingle, becoming enmeshed in what was to be the dream vacation of a lifetime for American couple Adam and narrator Stella Knox.

They had met at an upscale antique fair in her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia when she accompanied her friend Katie, a medical resident who was seeking revenge on her cheating fiancé by selling some of his cherished possessions. While Katie was achieving this diabolical satisfaction, Adam and Stella became instantly love-struck and immediately inseparable. Throughout the following year of togetherness and three of marriage, they had thriftily saved for a long-anticipated and overdue honeymoon.

Originally from Chicago, Adam is handsome, sophisticated, well-educated and cultured. Fluency in French served as an additional attraction, also assisted in his business as a buyer and seller of significant, antique architectural salvage for discerning, wealthy clientele which included Francophile architects and interior designers. With the help of antique dealer, Antoine Bernard, owner of an upscale shop in the 18th arrondissement, he is able to purchase a quantity of objects ranging from elaborate Louis IV furnishings to lavish, richly decorated Belle Époque pieces sufficient to fill an entire shipping container.  These wall moldings, doors, tiles, intricate parquet floors, stained glass windows and ancient artifacts were obtained from city apartments, country estates, chateaus, sales and auctions at a fraction of their stateside value.   

A Dream Vacation Turned Nightmare

Stella took time off from her catering business and they embarked on a glorious European vacation enjoying sightseeing, savoring great foods and wines all the while most gratifyingly basking in each other’s company. Prior to departing for Orly Airport on the final day of their trip, they shared a romantic leisurely luncheon at an out-of-the way Paris café Stella recalled from her days as an international flight attendant. Adam had forgotten a pair of cheap sunglasses at the café and despite the shortness of time uncharacteristically insisted on returning alone to retrieve them.

Enroute to their hotel, Stella experiences the reverberating blast of a powerful bomb exploding and sees plumes of black smoke rising from the city square where the café was located. She races back but is prevented from entering the square by the gendarmerie. As the French police scrabble through the rubble and tend to the wounded and dead, Stella’s anxiety rapidly mounts with Adam missing and no telephone or text communication from him.

The sympathetic hotel manager generously moves her to the penthouse. It seems clear to all but Stella that her husband is dead. Her secure, happy world disintegrates further as she is informed Adam was far from being a legitimate dealer of high-end architectural materials. Under surveillance for a number of years by both the FBI and Interpol as being a dealer in rare stolen art, artifacts and jewelry, he had associated with a long list of criminal clients they were also seeking for arrest and prosecution.

Uncovering a Web of Deceit

Her fears escalate when her hotel room is ransacked and Adam’s laptop stolen. She realizes she is being followed by a British man she remembered from being at the square shortly after the bombing. Among the various men claiming to be from the American Embassy or others representing themselves as investigators appear at the hotel or in the streets, bombarding her with endless questions which she is unable to answer, who could possibly be worthy of trust? Notwithstanding the urgings of friends in the USA, the police, the embassy staff, that mysterious British stranger and the persistent investigative team who suspect she knows more than she does to return immediately to Atlanta, Stella embarks on her own investigation.

Despite advice, admonitions and warnings that this could place her in mortal danger, Stella is determined to learn the truth.  Adam had been so convincingly reasonable, normal, organized and genuinely enthusiastic about his work of rescuing and repurposing beautiful architecture fixtures. He loved his sister and provided for his severely developmentally disabled nephew. Could this charming man in actuality be a master criminal and fence involved in an international ring of thieves? Could she have so drastically misjudged him? 

Adding to her growing malaise, Stella harbors deep, shameful secrets involving a smuggling incident that happened when she was a flight attendant that was supposed to have been expunged from her official records. As unlikely as it seems, is it possible there exists a connection between her distant past and this formidable puzzle? Was the café bombing simply an act of terrorism and Adam a random victim or was he, in fact, the target of the explosion?

The Paris Widow allows the reader to vicariously travel through Paris in a gripping, unpredictable novel. You won’t want to put this one down! 

The High Stakes World of Art Crime

Kimberly Belle sheds light on the major worldwide high-stakes shadowy world of criminals specializing in the theft of art and antiquities in her engrossing and well-researched most recent novel The Paris Widow. 

The FBI estimates enormously valuable art, antiques, jewelry and other treasures valued at over six billion is stolen from museums, archives, libraries, galleries, shops and individuals annually in the United States.  In 2004, in response to this unfortunately expanding area of criminal activity, they formed a special task force: the Art Crime Team consisting of 14 agents dedicated to locating and arresting perpetrators, supported by a handful of prosecuting trial attorneys.

Only a small fraction of items stolen are recovered and penalties for those perpetrators arrested are relatively minimal as art theft is oddly considered to be a victimless crime. Particularly troublesome is theft of art and artifacts that are part of national heritage or cultural significance. What is not included is the ownership by major museums throughout the world of ethno-cultural looting or acquisition with dubious provenance with widespread examples such as the Elgin marbles, Egyptian tomb burial objects, treasured tribal objects, wartime “booty” and the enormity of art and other valuables appropriated during the Holocaust. Artnapping, the snatching of specifically targeted coveted objects d’art for the personal collections of unscrupulous billionaires who can afford highly intelligent sophisticated, specialized thieves has become a deplorable growth industry.

(One notable “Pink Panther” styled notorious theft occurred in 1994 when a then estimated $1.6 million dollars in jewelry and bibelot crafted by George William Headley III, master jeweler and founder of the Headley-Whitney Museum in Lexington, Kentucky was stolen and to date has not been recovered. ) Ocean going mega-yachts with their own helipads and private jets waiting at small airports have played a part in the disappearance of priceless objects while numbered unidentifiable international bank accounts seamlessly transfer funds. 

Check out this article about some of the most expensive stolen art treasures.

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