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I always think that a genuine friend is like a genuine antique - you'd go a long way to find one and you'd do anything to stop one getting broken. When an Italian gentleman made me an offer I couldn't refuse, stopping my friends from getting broken meant stealing a very valuable antique. 'Somebody else has got my antique and I want it back,' was how he put it. 'Who has it?' I asked. Without a flicker of a smile he replied, 'The Pope.' If you think of the Vatican as a big church where the show more Pope lives, then think again. It is a complete walled city with its own shops, its own bank and its own armed security in the shape of the ridiculously costumed Swiss Guards. Look a bit daft, don't they? But they're well trained and well armed young men. Well, if stealing antiques from the Pope was easy, everybody would be doing it, wouldn't they? show lessTags
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Lovejoy is at his most psychopathic here, gratuitously violent to bad guys and to women, and so utterly besotted with antiques as to be unaware of any other person's feelings. Gash redeems the novel as a reading experience with loving detail on Rome, on the Vatican and on Lovejoy's audacious plan to rip an exhibit from the tightly guarded city-state, and also by Lovejoy getting a mildly comical if emotionally improbable comeuppance at the end, after the bad guys have met their just deserts. But I think the narrator's sheer unpleasantness makes it a weaker entry in the series.
Lovejoy is at his most psychopathic here, gratuitously violent to bad guys and to women, and so utterly besotted with antiques as to be unaware of any other person's feelings. Gash redeems the novel as a reading experience with loving detail on Rome, on the Vatican and on Lovejoy's audacious plan to rip an exhibit from the tightly guarded city-state, and also by Lovejoy getting a mildly comical if emotionally improbable comeuppance at the end, after the bad guys have met their just deserts. But I think the narrator's sheer unpleasantness makes it a weaker entry in the series.
A mystery set in Vatican City involves a commission to Lovejoy to steal an antique table from the Vatican. A highly improbable plot, but the information about antiques - both forgeries and the real thing - give a lot of interest to Gash's stories. Lovejoy wasn't so much the lovable rogue in this one, especially when he walloped an old lady! Although the old lady was just as much a rogue as Lovejoy, it was shocking. It appears there were no adverse effects so maybe it didn't hold any force. The rest of the story was ok, but this episode stuck in my mind.
I feel guilty about giving this book a fairly poor three stars. I know why I give it such a low response: it is because I came to Lovejoy via the TV series of the 1990's. I, therefore, expect the characters to reflect my televisual memories.
Sadly, Lovejoy is much more down to earth, honest money grabbing dodgy dealer, Tinker is a repulsive old soak and the other favourites, non existent. I am thus biased against Mr Gash's book from the first page. Whether this caused me not to concentrate sufficiently upon the plot, but I found this story to jump occasionally, in ways that I didn't quite understand.
That's my biased opinion.
Sadly, Lovejoy is much more down to earth, honest money grabbing dodgy dealer, Tinker is a repulsive old soak and the other favourites, non existent. I am thus biased against Mr Gash's book from the first page. Whether this caused me not to concentrate sufficiently upon the plot, but I found this story to jump occasionally, in ways that I didn't quite understand.
That's my biased opinion.
Antique dealer/sharpster sent to knock over Vatican. Amusing, unlikely, lots of antique lore.
The fifth [Lovejoy] mystery
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Things are finally looking up for Gash's so-so Lovejoy series--because this new case for seedy, sexy narrator-hero Lovejoy, the savviest antique dealer in East Anglia, shows marked improvement in two vital areas: Lovejoy himself is for the first time more engaging than obnoxious; and his lectures on antiques have now become an integral part of the story, not extraneous interruptions. The show more setup: an enigmatic toughie named Arcellano blackmails/threatens Lovejoy into undertaking a near-hopeless-mission: he's to steal a Chippendale rent table (supposedly Arcellano family property) from. . . the Vatican! Impossible--even with the crash-course in Italian which Arcellano forces Lovejoy to take. But Lovejoy knows he'd better come through or else--because soon after he gets to Rome, his contact turns up dead in the Colosseum (apparently killed by Arcellano's thugs). So the caper is on: Lovejoy gets himself a base of operations by working for a comically intrigue-ridden antiques shop; he gets street-wise help from local thief Anna (who masquerades as an old crone); and the heist involves a faked medical emergency in a cafeteria near the Vatican Museum, a fake Chippendale constructed by Lovejoy, and considerable acrobatics. Plus: a not-really-surprising twist (who is Arcellano really?) waiting at the end. All in all, the best Lovejoy yet: not very plausible--but active, amusing, lightly informative, and without the snarling/macho posing which has been such a turn-off in previous outings. show less
added by VivienneR
Author Information
46+ Works 4,281 Members
Jonathan Gash, best known as the creator of the character Lovejoy, is the pseudonym of John Grant. Grant was born on September 30, 1933 in Bolton, Lancashire, England. He was educated at the University of London and the Royal College of Surgeons and Physics. In the mid-1970s, Gash began writing to relieve some of the stress of his career as a show more physician. The first Lovejoy novel, The Judas Pair, won the Creasey Award for the Crime Writer's Association of Great Britain for best first crime novel. A number of other novels, Lovejoy's and otherwise, have followed. (Bowker Author Biography) Jonathan Gash was born John Grant on September 30, 1933 in Bolton, Lancashire, England. He was received an M.B. and a B.S. at the University of London, a M.R.C.S. and a L.R.C.P. at the Royal College of Surgeons and Physicians and has also earned D.Path., D.Bact., D.H.M., M.D. and D.T.M.H. He achieved the rank of Major in the British Army Medical Corps and was posted to Germany. In 1955, he married Pamela Richard, and they had three daughters. Grant had served as a general practitioner in London, a pathologist in London and Essex, a clinical pathologist in Hanover and Berlin, a lecturer in clinical pathology and head of division at the University of Hong Kong, and a microbiologist in Hong Kong and London. He was also the head of the bacteriology unit at the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, from 1971 to 1988. He is a fellow of the International College of Surgeons and of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine. Jonathan Gash is the author of The Lovejoy Novels, whose first was "The Judas Pair" (1977). It won the Creasey Award from the Crime Writer's Association of Great Britain for the best first crime novel of the year. Some of the other titles in the Lovejoy series are "The Vatican Rip" (1981), "The Gondola Scam" (1983), "Jade Woman" (1988), "Lies of Fair Ladies" (1991), "The Grace in Older Women" (1995), and "A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair" (1999). He also has a series that features Dr. Clare Burtonall with the first being "Different Women Dancing" (1997). He has also written "The Incomer" (1982) under the pseudonym Graham Gaunt and "Mehala, Lady of Sealandings" (1993) under the pseudonym Jonathan Grant. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Vatican Rip
- Original publication date
- 1981
- People/Characters
- Lovejoy; Adriana Albanese; Jingo Hardy; Signor Arcellano; Maria Peck; Anna
- Important places
- Rome, Italy; Vatican City
- Epigraph
- In Rome, effort is unknown, energy is without purpose . . .
STENDHAL - Dedication
- Dedicated to the Second Biennial Festival of Bolton, Greater Manchester (formerly Lancashire) -- August 1981--in gratitude for the rich appreciation of community feeling instilled in the author by his unique home town.
- First words
- The trouble with life is, you start off worse and go downhill.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)I said, 'I may not survive, but I'll definitely be staying.'
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- Members
- 187
- Popularity
- 174,479
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.53)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 10
- ASINs
- 2
