Stealing Mona Lisa

What could be more lucrative than stealing Da Vinci's masterpiece Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum and selling it to an American Robber Baron? How about stealing it and selling six exact copies to six American Robber Barons? This is the plan that master conman Eduardo de Valfierno comes up with in the historical novel, "Stealing Mona Lisa". Loosely based on the true story of the theft of the world's greatest painting in 1911, the novel is set against the colourful milieu of early 20th Century Paris. At first, Valfierno's plan goes like clockwork, but his scheme begins to unravel when he finds himself falling in love with Ellen, the young bird-in-a-gilded-cage wife of Joshua Hart, his richest and most powerful - not to mention vindictive - customer. The story climaxes against the backdrop of another actual event from the same time period, the devastating flooding of Paris by the rain-swollen River Seine.