Lucian Glass works with the FBI in the special unit that
works on Art crimes. His current case is about an art
collector who seems to enjoy destroying art masterpieces.
While working this current case he goes undercover at the
Phoenix Foundation. The Phoenix Foundation is a place that
studies the science of past lives and there effects. As
Lucian hides at the foundation he must agree to be treated
by a hypnotist.
Lucian travels back in time while he is hypnotized taking
him to many places from Ancient Greece to nineteenth
century Persia and the adventures of his past lives. Yet in
real life he must continue to work the case he is on which
takes him to other parts of the world including New York
and Paris. As time goes by Lucian begins to question his
own sanity. Will he catch the one bent on destroying the
wonderful art before looses himself?
THE HYPNOTIST was an interesting story of mystery and
suspense. The author weaves both Lucian's past and present
lives nicely into the plot. Lucian must deal with is pain
and the problems of his past while trying to solve his most
recent case. All the while he must stop the current
director Dr. Samuels from harming more people. Lucian is
smart and dedicated to solving his cases. He deals with all
that life throws at him and continues to forge on.
M. J. Rose brings the reader into a world of intrigue and
suspense. This is one book in an on going series so readers
may want to read the other books to enjoy all of agent
Lucian's adventures. If you enjoy past lives or are even
just curious about how both our past and present lives can
be connected this may be an interesting book to pick up.
Haunted by a twenty-year old murder of a beautiful young
painter, Lucian Glass keeps his demons at bay through his
fascinating work as a Special Agent with the FBI's Art Crime
Team. Currently investigating a crazed art collector who has
begun destroying prized masterworks, Glass is thrust into a
bizarre hostage negotiation that takes him undercover at the
Phoenix Foundation—dedicated to the science of past life
study—where, in order to maintain his cover, he agrees to
submit to the treatment of a hypnotist.
Under hypnosis,
Glass travels from ancient Greece to 19th century Persia,
while the case takes him from New York to Paris and the
movie capital of world. These journeys will change his very
understanding of reality, lead him to question his own
sanity and land him at the center of perhaps the most
audacious art heist in history: the theft of a 1,500 year
old sculpture from the Metropolitan Museum of
Art.
International bestselling author M. J. Rose's The
Hynpotist is her most mesmerizing novel yet. An
adventure, a love story, a clash of cultures, a spiritual
quest, it is above all a thrilling capstone to her unique
Reincarnation novels, The Reincarnationist and The
Memorist.
Excerpt
"Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term
Art, I should call it the reproduction of what the
Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the
soul."
—Edgar Allan Poe
Twenty Years Ago
Time played tricks on him whenever he stood in front of the
easel. Hypnotized by the rhythm of the brush on the canvas,
by one color merging into another, the two shades creating a
third, the third melting into a fourth, he was lulled into a
state of single-minded consciousness focused only on the
image emerging. Immersed in the act of painting, he forgot
obligations, missed classes, didn't remember to eat or to
drink or look at the clock. This was why, at 5:25 that
Friday evening, Lucian Glass was rushing down the
urine-stinking steps to the gloomy subway platform when he
should have already been uptown where Solange Jacobs was
waiting for him at her father's framing gallery. Together,
they planned to walk over to an exhibit a block away, at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
When he reached the store, the shade was drawn and the
Closed sign faced out, but the front door wasn't locked.
Inside, none of the lamps were lit, but there was enough
ambient twilight coming through the windows for him to see
that Solange wasn't there, only dozens and dozens of empty
frames, encasing nothing but pale yellow walls, crowded
shoulder-to-shoulder, waiting to be filled like lost souls
looking for mates.
As he hurried toward the workroom in the back, the
commingled smells of glue and sawdust grew stronger and,
except for his own voice calling out, the silence louder.
"Solange?"
Stopping on the threshold, he looked around but saw only
more empty frames.Where was she? And why was she here
alone? Lucian was walking toward the worktable,
wondering if there was another room back there, when he saw
her. Solange was sprawled on the floor, thrown against a
large, ornate frame as if she were its masterpiece, her
blood splattered on its broken gold arms, a still life in
terror. There were cuts on her face and hands and more blood
pooled beneath her.
Kneeling, he touched her shoulder. "Solange?"
Her eyes stayed closed but she offered a ghost of a smile.
While he was thinking of what to do first—help her or
call 911—she opened her eyes and lifted her hand to
her cheek. Her fingertips came away red with blood.
"Cut?" she asked, as if she had no idea what had
happened.
He nodded.
"Promise," she whispered, "you won't paint me
like this…" Solange had a crescent-shaped scar on her
forehead and was forever making sure her bangs covered it.
Then, catching herself, she'd laugh at her vanity. That
laugh now came out as a moan.
When her eyes fluttered closed, Lucian put his head on her
chest. He couldn't hear a heartbeat. Putting his mouth over
hers, he attempted resuscitation, frantically mimicking what
he'd seen people do in movies, not sure he was doing it right.
He thought he saw her hand move and had a moment of elation
that she was going to be all right before realizing it was
only his reflection moving in the frame. His head back on
her chest, he listened but heard nothing. As he lay there,
Solange's blood seeping out of her wound, soaking his hair
and shirt, he felt a short, fierce burst of wind.
Lucian was tall but thin… just a skinny kid studying to be a
painter. He didn't know how to defend himself, didn't know
how to deflect the knife that came down, ripping through his
shirt and flesh and muscle. Again. And then again. So many
times that finally he wasn't feeling the pain; he was the
pain, had become the agony. Making an effort to stay
focused, as if somehow that would matter, he tried to
memorize all the colors of the scene around him: his
attacker's shirtsleeve was ochre, Solange's skin was
titanium white… he was drifting…
There were voices next, very far-off and indistinct. Lucian
tried to grasp what they were saying.
"…extensive blood loss…"
"…multiple stab wounds…"
He was traveling away from the words. Or were they traveling
away from him? Were the people leaving him alone here?
Didn't they realize he was hurt? No, they weren't leaving
him… they were lifting him. Moving him. He felt cool air on
his face. Heard traffic.
Their voices were becoming more indistinct.
"…can't get a pulse…"
"We're losing him…quick, quick. We're losing him…"
The distance between where he was and where they were
increased with every second. The words were just faint
whispers now, as soft as a wisp of Solange's hair.
"Too late…he's gone."
The last thing he heard was one paramedic telling the other
the time was 6:59 p.m. A silence entered Lucian, filling him
up and giving him, at last, respite from the pain.
The Present
The building on Fortieth Street and Third Avenue was a
series of cantilevered glass boxes. Upstairs on the
sixteenth floor, in an opulent office inconsistent with the
modern structure, three men were on a conference call with a
fourth via a secure phone line. It was an unnecessary
precaution. When the mission of Iran to the UN had rented
this space, they'd torn down the walls so they could
properly insulate against long-range distance microphones.
But one could never be too cautious, especially on foreign soil.
A fog of smoke hung over the windowless conference room
table and the odor of heavy tobacco overwhelmed Ali Samimi.
He hated the stink of the Cuban cigars but he wasn't in
charge here and couldn't complain. He coughed. Coughed
again. It was so like his boss to blow the smoke in his
direction, despite knowing he was sensitive to it.
Farid Taghinia was one mean motherfucking son of a
bitch. Samimi stifled the smile that just thinking the
American curse words brought to his lips.
"We have no trouble working with the British, the French
or the Austrians. Only with the Americans do complications
and conflict continue to arise. Haven't I been generous in
offering to allow the museum to keep the sculpture for the
opening of their new wing? Haven't they seen the documents
we provided proving the sculpture was stolen? Why are they
still hesitating?" Even though his voice was traveling
six thousand miles, from Tehran to Manhattan, Hicham
Nassir's puzzlement was perceptible.
"Because I haven't shown them the documents," said
Vartan Reza, a craggy-faced, Iranian-born American lawyer
who specialized in cultural heritage cases. It had been
almost two years since the mission had hired Reza to
orchestrate the return of a piece of sculpture currently
owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the basis that it
had been illegally taken out of Iran over a hundred years
before. The lawyer had hesitated in accepting the case until
Taghinia had made it clear that a generous fee would not be
the lawyer's only recompense. The members of Reza's family
still living in Tehran would be well provided for, too.
If Samimi had respected Taghinia at all, he would have been
impressed by his boss's cunning—offering a generous
bonus wrapped around a threat. Instead it made him all the
more nervous about watching his own back.
"Didn't show them the papers? Why is that?" demanded
Taghinia from the opposite end of the table as he put the
Cuban up to his mouth and inhaled again.
"I have some questions about their authenticity,"
Reza explained. "And I don't want to turn anything over
to the museum's attorneys that might prove embarrassing and
hurt our case."
Taghinia picked a piece of tobacco off his thick lips,
blinked his lizard-brown eyes and started tapping his foot
on the carpet. "Questions?" Tap, tap.
"Questions at this point are not a good thing, Mr.
Reza." Tap, tap. "Our government is
losing patience."
"Regardless, it's not in your best interest to have me
proceed rashly."
Taghinia glared at Samimi as if this was somehow the
underling's fault. The only real civility and cooperation
between Iran and America was in the cultural arena, and if
this issue dragged on and became an international incident
it wouldn't help either country's already strained
diplomatic efforts.
"Were you aware of this?" he asked.
"I don't care if Samimi knew about it or not. I want to
know what's wrong with the documents." Nassir's voice
drew everyone's attention back to the squawk box in the
middle of the highly polished ebony table.
"I don't believe they're authentic," Reza said.
"What?" Taghinia's face flushed with an emotion that
read as outrage but that Samimi suspected was guilt.
"That's impossible," said Nassir. "Reza, do you
understand? That's impossible."
Samimi had never heard the minister of culture so upset.
Nassir had studied art history at Oxford and had published
two books on Islamic art that had each been translated into
more than twenty languages. Nassir had once said that he
believed every piece in Iran's museum was a member of his
family and it was up to him to safeguard them all.
"The partage agreement that details the fate of the
objects found at the Susa excavations is dated 1885,"
Reza said.
"Yes?" Nassir asked.
"The paper it's written on was manufactured in
1910," Reza explained.
"Impossible."
"I'm afraid not. I've had two experts test it."
"But there are corroborating records," the minister
argued.
"None that mention this piece by name or description,
Mr. Nassir. For the past eighteen months, we've been
operating on the assumption that these papers were
authentic. We've built our whole case on them. This is a
serious setback."
At the heart of Iran's request was an eight-foot-tall
chryselephantine statue of the Greek god Hypnos, the god of
sleep, which neither Samimi nor anyone else on the phone
call had ever seen. According to art historians, some of the
best chryselephantine sculpture came from the city of
Delphi, which had been looted by the Phokians in the
mid-fourth century BCE. The Phokians had sold some of the
treasures to raise money and pay troops; others they melted
to make coins. It was believed that a Persian satrap or king
in Susa had bought Hypnos when the Phokians reached the east
and that, at some point after that, the statue had been
buried. It might have been hidden during an attack to save
it from more looters because of the amount of gold, ivory
and precious stones that decorated it, or stolen again and
hidden by the thief. No one knew, but the result was that it
had survived practically intact until the 1880s.
"What about the treaty?" Nassir asked.
Samimi had also given Reza a copy of a treaty dated April
12, 1885, that granted France the exclusive right to
excavate the area of Shush, which was on the ancient site of
Susa. "That's authentic, but since we have no proof of
when Hypnos was found, only when it was shipped out of the
country, it's useless."
"It was discovered prior to April. The American
collector bought looted art," Taghinia insisted. He
turned and looked at Samimi, then blew out more of the toxic
smoke.
Samimi knew he couldn't logically be blamed for this latest
snafu. Nassir had sent the documents in question to America
via the diplomatic pouch. But Taghinia was going to need
someone to blame and the case had been Samimi's
responsibility for the past year and a half. He knew more
about the history of the hypnotist than anyone here but Reza.
When the American collector who'd bought the sculpture died
in 1888 he left it, along with the rest of his vast
collection, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At that time
New York's fledgling museum, which had recently moved from
Fourteenth Street up to Eighty-First Street and Fifth
Avenue, had already outgrown its new space, and its
director, General Luigi Palma di Cesnola, was using all
available funds for expansions. When he saw how much
conservation Hypnos needed he put the sculpture in storage
in the cavernous tunnel under Central Park until he had the
money to tend to it. In 1908 a young curator mislabeled it
and for almost an entire century after that, it remained
lost. Then, in the winter of 2007, another curator,
searching for a Roman bronze, discovered the mis-labeled
crate. A few months later, the Met announced its find.
Hypnos, they said, would be getting the conservation it
needed before being installed in a special exhibition space
linking the Greek and Roman wings with the new Islamic wing
when it opened in 2011.
Five months later, Vartan Reza formally made a request on
behalf of the Iranian government that Hypnos be returned,
claiming it had been illegally smuggled out of the country
by a French archaeologist.
Once the international press reported the story, the Greek
government filed a similar claim, requesting that the
sculpture be returned to them since, even though the piece
had been found in the Middle East, it was clearly of Greek
origin and a national treasure.
It was no surprise that the single surviving piece of
chryselephantine sculpture in the world was a prize to fight
over, but the Met refused to even get into the ring.
In a New York Times op-ed, the museum director
wrote about the cultural heritage issue at the heart of the
battle:
There is no case here. Frederick L. Lennox, who bequeathed
the sculpture to us, did not engage in buying contraband.
Partage was a common and legitimate system in the nineteenth
century, and this treasure was part of that fair
exchange—expertise traded for a percentage of what was
found. It wasn't illegal activity then and can't be looked
at as illegal activity now.
Hypnos has been at the Met for over one hundred and twenty
years. This is his home, and with us he is safe in a way
that he might not be in his homeland. We'll continue to
protect him and prepare him to be shown unless and until we
have irrefutable proof that he's here illegally.
All over the world, museums engaged in similar battles were
watching what happened in New York. When accused of
harboring looted treasures, most of them took it upon
themselves to do the research necessary to prove the
legality of their ownership. Not the Met. The director
insisted the burden of that proof was on the claimant. The
Metropolitan, he said, was under no obligation to prove the
opposite. The last will and testament of Frederick L. Lennox
had been verified when it was executed over a hundred years
before.
Reza had countered by getting a subpoena requiring the
museum to turn over Lennox's bequest and any other pertinent
paperwork. When that request was refused, Reza filed with
the Manhattan district attorney, asking to be allowed to
review the Met's documents and study the detailed history of
the object's journey to the museum in order to prove it was
there illegally.
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