In his novel, Hunting Mona Lisa, Carson Morton, the award-winning author of the historical mystery Stealing Mona Lisa, tracks the uncertain fate of the world’s greatest painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, through the tumult of World War II.
As the Germans approach Paris, Giles Bouchet, head curator of the Louvre Museum, is tasked with rescuing the masterpiece and whisking it away to a secret location in the South of France. But to accomplish this, he must abandon his wife and his 15-year-old daughter, Delphine.
Following the death of her mother, Delphine comes of age in Occupied Paris working as an apprentice curator. In the past four years, she has received no word from her father. To survive, she has closed off her heart to everyone, especially him, but news that Giles has been arrested for murder by the Milice, the dreaded French Fascist Militia, forces her to escape occupied Paris in an attempt to save him and the painting.
Arriving in the remote and picturesque village of Ardeche in the south of France, she finds herself embroiled with Nazi collaborators, French Resistance fighters, and even a childhood Beau, now one of the enemy. And amidst it all, she must somehow rescue her father, save a group of Jewish children, and uncover The Mona Lisa before Nazi agents get their hands on it.
As the Germans approach Paris, Giles Bouchet, head curator of the Louvre Museum, is tasked with rescuing the masterpiece and whisking it away to a secret location in the South of France. But to accomplish this, he must abandon his wife and his 15-year-old daughter, Delphine.
Following the death of her mother, Delphine comes of age in Occupied Paris working as an apprentice curator. In the past four years, she has received no word from her father. To survive, she has closed off her heart to everyone, especially him, but news that Giles has been arrested for murder by the Milice, the dreaded French Fascist Militia, forces her to escape occupied Paris in an attempt to save him and the painting.
Arriving in the remote and picturesque village of Ardeche in the south of France, she finds herself embroiled with Nazi collaborators, French Resistance fighters, and even a childhood Beau, now one of the enemy. And amidst it all, she must somehow rescue her father, save a group of Jewish children, and uncover The Mona Lisa before Nazi agents get their hands on it.