The Picasso Ransom, A.T. Prewett

Back in 1986 I wouldn't have had as much understanding of the opening line of this blurb as I do have today, as 70 year old Phoebe and her two similarly aged friends Eva and Dave are escaping from the back of the arts school near the National Gallery of Victoria, stolen painting in hand:

'Can we try escaping just a little slower?'

Nowadays I get it 100%. As would a lot of us who distinctly remember, and were in Melbourne, at the time of the real life heist of Picasso's Weeping Woman. (At this point can I highly recommend Marc Fennell's investigative TV series - Framed, which the author of this fiction based on real life story mentions in his acknowledgements).

As the blurb puts it - Fact: In 1986, Picasso's Weeping Woman was stolen from the National Gallery of Victoria. To this day, the culprits have never been identified.

The culprits at the time referred to themselves as the Australian Cultural Terrorists, and their demands were about the lack of funding for the Arts in Victoria, including some massive (abusive alas but funny with it), of the then Minister for the Police and Arts (I kid you not), Race Matthews. The names of the main players - the Minister, the Head of the National Gallery of Victoria etc have all been changed in this novel, but it will be very very easy for readers of a certain age to instantly recognise the bouffant hairstyles, and the flamboyant dress senses of some of the then main players.

The idea that three retiree art students - Phoebe, Eva and Dave - are the real perpetrators is, one assumes, a work of fiction, but there was something gloriously appealing about the idea that somebody of a certain age could hide out in a major cultural institution, luck out on moving around the gallery dodging a couple of older security guards, find the right sort of screwdriver, snaffle a painting with a few million, and stroll out of the building with it, all on a whim. There is also something very telling about the age gap between the "right on student activist group" who spend a lot of time talking about what they want to do, whilst actively rejecting the older three as too old to be anything but plants. All the while it's the older ones who have actually done something very radical about the funding cuts, and the threat to their beloved art school.

THE PICASSO RANSOM is cleverly done - being based on a still unsolved real life case - the author has had the opportunity to mix the known in with speculation in a way that makes the whole story sing. Having created three terrific central characters helps as well, although Phoebe is the star of the show. An older woman who has spent her life being conventional until retirement from teaching, a divorce, and the realisation that her life has devolved into nothing much, enrols in art school to follow a lifelong passion for painting, only to find herself in a situation she would never, ever have dreamed of. In her personal life, her criminal endeavours and her future. 

This book is quite an undertaking, enormous fun, hugely entertaining and cleverly constructed, it also has that little kick in the messaging - about age, capacity and openness to new experiences. Filled with references to Melbourne in the late 1980's when it was still fun, vibrant, slightly chaotic (or at least it seemed that way to me at the time - not so now), this is serious mum, when it wasn't (TISM reference - read the novel).