The Other Cipher (Soli Hansen Mysteries)
This artfully told historical mystery is Book Two in the Soli Hansen Mysteries. Autumn 1944—the midst of World War II— and in German-occupied Oslo, Norway, Soli Hansen, art historian and proprietor of Holm’s Fine Art Shop, has an eidetic memory. She’s been recruited by the Art Club, an underground resistance network intent on saving precious art works from Hitler’s spies. The Nazis hunt a particular 17th-century portrait of a woman. Can Soli beat them to it? She is aided by her friends, Heddy Vengen and Detective Nikolai Lange, and the cryptographers working with “Z”—one of whom, art collector Henry Gran, has gone missing. What are his connections with Leon Ruber, and Ruber’s Italian Jewish heritage? And a cryptic, manuscript art ledger recording a 1613 sale? There are many mysteries to solve. But Heddy’s father, Nazi-collaborator Carl Vengen, complicates things for the Art Club. So does his assistant, the “bright but irritatingly pedantic” Sophus Bech. Also, readers are treated to a parallel narrative set in 17th-century Antwerp, Belgium. There, Fabiola Ruber seeks a painter who might capture her in the same way that an Italian master painter had during her youth in Valetta, Malta, for which she longs.
In the background are Norwegian politicians, like the pro-Nazi Minister President Vidkun Quisling, and Olva V, Norwegian Crown Prince. We take in the streets, buildings—and food—of Renaissance Antwerp and WWII-torn Oslo. Norwegian artists discussed include Edvard Munch, Hans Ryggen, and Theodor Kittelsen, but center canvas are Baroque painters: Frans Francken, Joos de Momper, and especially “the great” Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, whose chiaroscuro technique inspired the up-and-coming Signor Peter Paul Rubens. We meet Rubens—and his The Honeysuckle Bower, portraying himself and his wife, Isabella—alongside Fabiola. Will Soli? You’ll have to read Eljarbo’s entertaining book to find out.
