De Potter’s Grand Tour
Armand de Potter, a penniless Belgian who claims a noble background, becomes an entrepreneur in late 19th-century New York. He builds a successful travel business and collects antiquities, many illegally, from the countries he travels through as he guides his tours. He marries a young woman named Amy and convinces her to call herself Aimée, to add to his cachet. As his fame grows, he moves his family to a luxurious villa in Cannes, France. Aimée adores France and, especially, her husband and their son. She keeps meticulous records in her diaries of their travels throughout Europe and the Middle East. Then one day in 1905, her husband disappears from a ship off the coast of Greece. Aimée soon discovers that Armand was not the man she thought he was.
Based on a true story, the author, through Aimée’s extensive diaries, pieces together the life of Armand de Potter and the circumstances of his mysterious disappearance. Deep in debt, and entangled in the illegal and dangerous antiquities trade, had De Potter faked his own death so his wife could collect his life insurance policy? Was De Potter still alive somewhere under a new identity, or had he committed suicide? The writing flows beautifully, with descriptions of foreign locales and complaining clients, though sometimes the minutiae of itineraries bog down the story. The time shifts from the past to Aimée’s present, as she tries to gather the threads of her life together, can get confusing. Still, the novel is fascinating and had me turning the pages.
