PECKERWOOD BOOK CLUB: What Are Your Favorite True-Crime Novels? Plus "Provenance!"

Greetings Peckerwood Book Hors! Do you have any favorite true-crime novels? Do you love a good 'n' gory serial killer entry, like the classic "Deviant: The Shocking True Story Of Ed Gein" by Harold Schechter? Or an immersive, nail-biting historical tale, like "The Poisoners Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York" by Deborah Blum? There's no wrong answer, of course. And sheesh, there's so many to choose from in a book category rife with sloppy rush jobs (most of which read like dry, extended Wikipedia entries). But when they hit the sweet spot between credible accuracy and shocking, you-can't-make-that-up incidents, there's nothing like them. In fact, I prefer an excellent true-crime novel over an excellent true-crime movie or miniseries. They creep under my skin with more intensity, and stay with me much longer. 

One of my favorite, newer true-crime novel's, "Provenance," by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo, doesn't even involve murder - or does it? 

In this enthralling arena, John Drew, a brilliant British conman, hoodwinks the entire art world establishment in the late 1980s and 90s - then becomes deadly. At once fascinating and repellant, he's an irresistible figure who lords over "Provenance" like a king-size come-on - daring every person within reach to challenge him. He was the very first, we learn, to create detailed, phony art world archives and records in order to sell forged artwork created by his partner-in-crime, painter John Myatt. That he becomes unstable, then lethal, only ups the stakes. 

Along with Drewe, all of the characters are captivating, including Myatt, the milquetoast art forger who naively assumes that his arrangement with Drewe will enable him to erase his long-standing debts; Bat-Sheva, Drewe’s estranged wife who repeatedly tries and fails to warn all comers about her unhinged husband who’s threatening her life; along with a plethora of art world dealers, historians, curators and record keepers, each of whom are easily taken in by Drewe’s raffish charm and his impeccably falsified provenance records. 

The book is juicy and tense - at one point, Drewe may or may not be selling weapons to Iran and Yemen - and its conclusion is a whopper, with a stranger-then-fiction outcome for both Myatt and Drewe, the later who insists that he's innocent of all crimes to this very day. 

Meanwhile, your Bibliophile Bunz Boy™ just finished "Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup" by John Carreyrou (he loved it!) (and found it far superior, and scarier, than the miniseries it inspired). Which means he's just twitching all over for something new and true and hair-raising. So let him have it, won't you?

Photo Credit: Penguin Books