Kat Lawson Mysteries – Ruff Drafts

Passport to Spy: A Kat Lawson Mystery
by Nancy Cole Silverman

About Passport to Spy

Passport to Spy: A Kat Lawson Mystery
Historical Mystery
2nd in Series
Setting – Germany
Level Best Books (June 6, 2023)
Print length ‏ : ‎ 268 pages
Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BXCGY2Y5

After losing her job as an investigative reporter for The Phoenix Gazette, Kat Lawson has a new gig. The FBI has asked her to work undercover as a reporter for Travel International to cover Munich, Germany’s festive holiday scene—an excuse to get close to Hans von Hausmann, a very charismatic and popular museum curator suspected of hiding a cache of stolen masterpieces believed to be part of the World’s Largest Art Heist. The job comes with lots of perks: airfare, travel expenses, the opportunity to see the world…and for a seasoned reporter like Kat, nothing she can’t handle. But, when a trusted source is found dead, Kat realizes the tables have been turned. Armed with evidence that will expose a cache of artwork stolen from museums and the homes of wealthy Jews during the 2nd World War, Kat must find a way to avoid being caught by the German Polizie, who have enough evidence to charge her with murder, and those who want her dead to keep their hidden treasures forever secret. The hunter has become the hunted; now, Kat has a target on her back.

GUEST POST

The Story Behind the Story

As a young woman, I lived in a small medieval Bavarian town near Munich, Germany. I was an Air Force wife in the early 70s, a little more than twenty-five years after the war had ended. Most of the Germans I met were maybe just a few years younger than me, and those older, anxious to look forward and not back at a time that had reflected the worst of their country. At the time, I remember being asked by my then-husband’s commanding officer if I might join a group of wives to host a luncheon for some local women who wanted to practice their English. It turned into a regular monthly coffee klatch—one of the highlights of my years there—with six or seven German housewives who liked to bake. We’d meet monthly at one of their homes, usually apartments, or when the weather prevailed, for a garden party at one of the community gardens. It was always delicious. And fattening! I don’t think there’s such a thing as a low-fat German dessert. Everything was made with real butter and lots and lots of cream. There was no way I could get away with just sampling each woman’s cake. It might have been an international incident if I did. Instead, I ate a healthy portion of each, and in addition to the desserts, drank lots of black coffee splashed with schnapps and finished off with an eier liqueur, German eggnog, that had I been wearing socks, would have knocked them off.

I left Germany in 1976. I had learned enough shopper’s-Deutsch to navigate my way around medieval villages, where early on, I had managed to find some porcelain factories that set up their kilns inside barns to make ends meet. I even bought a porcelain chandelier that once hung above a cow stall and, to this day, hangs in my mother’s apartment. My travels allowed me to start a shopper’s newsletter for military wives looking to buy gifts like hand-carved wooden nativity scenes, nutcrackers, candies, and Christmas ornaments while visiting places off the beaten path that tourists might not know about.

My experience in Europe opened my eyes not only to a country of beautiful lakes, mountains, and people but of secrets that, until years later, I had no idea existed. It wasn’t until 2012, nearly thirty-seven years after I had left Germany, that I heard a story about a routine customs check at the Swiss border, a border I had passed through many times, that would lead to the discovery of 1500 hidden works of art in a Munich apartment. Blocks from my old stomping grounds.

And thus began my research…

Passport to Spy is based on the life of Hildebrand Gurlitt, a once-successful museum curator who had worked with the Nazis to destroy what Hitler considered to be degenerative art while looting masterpieces and the homes of wealthy Jews and some of Europe’s best museums.

After the war, Gurlitt argued that he only did what he needed to survive and had helped save art that would have otherwise been destroyed. However, records—and the Germans did keep a detailed accounting—show that the sale of such art was used to help finance the Third Reich. And what the Nazis didn’t sell, destroy or secure for what was to be the Fuhrer’s Museum, Gurlitt took for himself.

As the war dragged on and the Allied bombing increased, the Nazis hid their treasures in mountain caves, salt mines, and castles like Neuschwanstein.

All might have been lost and forgotten were it not for groups like the Monuments Men, who attempted to return what today art historians call The World’s Largest Art Heist.

At the war’s end, Gurlitt avoided prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials, claiming he was one-quarter Jewish and a victim of Nazi persecution. But rather than walk away, Gurlitt had one final trick up his sleeve and a lot of moxie. He tracked down the allies’ collection center where those works of art—some Gurlitt had stolen and others part of the Nazi’s cache—were being housed, and with a stack of forged papers, approached those in charge and claimed the art in question belonged to his family. Shockingly, he was allowed to truck hundreds of stolen masterpieces away.

Under German law, it wasn’t illegal to own stolen art, and Gurlitt believed the spoils of war were indeed his, and upon his death in 1956, the entire collection was passed on to his son, Cornelius Gurlitt. It was Cornelius Gurlitt who attracted the attention of the Swiss/German border police, which ultimately led to the discovery of a hidden cache of stolen art in a Munich apartment.

The story was one I couldn’t stop researching. Gurlitt’s Hoard wasn’t the only cache of hidden treasures found after the war. And the Germans rush to report it. The story was finally reported to the press two years after the initial find.

When I finished my research, I couldn’t help but think back to my time in Germany and wonder how close I might have come to stumbling upon some hidden cache while researching little-known shopping sights. I believe the story picks the writer; in this instance, Gurlitt’s Hoard picked me, and Passport to Spy is a ripped-from-the-headlines attempt on my part to fictionalize the tale while keeping the essence alive.

About Nancy Cole Silverman

Nancy Cole Silverman spent nearly twenty-five years in news and talk radio, beginning her career in college on the talent side as one of the first female voices on the air. Later on the business side in Los Angeles, she retired as one of two female general managers in the nation’s second-largest radio market. After a successful career in the radio industry, Silverman retired to write fiction. Her short stories and crime-focused novels—the Carol Childs and Misty Dawn Mysteries, (Henry Press) are both Los Angeles-based. Her newest series THE NAVIGATOR’S DAUGHTER, (Level Best Books) takes a more international approach. Silverman lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a thoroughly pampered standard poodle.

Author Links

Website www.nancycolesilverman.com Facebook Nancy Cole Silverman | Facebook Goodreads: Nancy Cole Silverman (Author of Shadow Of Doubt) | Goodreads

Purchase Links – Amazon

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