The Van Gogh Deception

The Van Gogh Deception (2017) is the first novel in The Lost Art Mystery series by lawyer and children’s mystery writer Deron Hicks. Art is a 12-year-old boy who has lost his memory and finds himself alone at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. With the help of his trusty new friend, Camille, he follows the clues to recovering his identity while dodging a team of operatives out to both catch him and destroy a mysterious item known as “the spider.” In his adventures, Art learns to cope with his memory loss and build trusting relationships to thwart a deceptive scheme of art forgery. The novel combines mystery with art appreciation and includes quick-response (QR) codes to works of art mentioned in the narrative. Art and Camille’s adventures continue in The Rembrandt Conspiracy (2020) and The Crown Heist (2021). The series has been compared to the works of mystery writer Dan Brown but for a middle grade audience.

This guide refers to the 2017 Harper Collins Kindle edition.

Content Warning: This novel references children in foster care and harm to children. It also references kidnapping. It plays into stereotypes by at times referring to a child in foster care as “lost.”

Plot Summary

The Van Gogh Deception begins with a prologue introducing 12-year-old Art Hamilton as “the boy” who has lost his memory and is found at the National Gallery of Art. Bewildered and alone, Art is taken to a hospital where he is diagnosed with dissociative amnesia caused by a traumatic event. Detective Brooke Evans promises to help him recover his identity, and he is temporarily placed with Mary Sullivan, an experienced and patient foster parent.

Art’s memory loss leaves him feeling vulnerable and confused as he struggles to remember his identity. Camille, Mary’s 10-year-old daughter, befriends Art and promises to keep him safe. Camille is talkative and precocious, and she entertains Art with her humor and wit. During his stay with the Sullivans, Art vividly recalls seeing paintings by Claude Monet in Paris and Hans Holbein the Younger in London. The book includes QR codes that link to museum websites and the paintings. Mary takes the children to the National Gallery of Art in hopes of sparking Art’s memory. He has an uncanny expertise in the paintings he sees, but the visit does not develop any personal insights for him about his identity. Art and Camille become separated from Mary when they follow a clue to the museum’s checkroom and discover Art had checked in a backpack filled with more clues.

The novel alternates between episodes of Art and the Sullivans and scenes focusing on Dorchek Palmer, a 28-year-old millionaire tech whiz. Palmer’s clandestine activities include commanding a team of operatives to break into an apartment and search for an item he calls “the spider.” His motivations become clearer as he is revealed to be the mastermind behind a multimillion-dollar scheme to sell the National Gallery of Art a forged painting by Vincent van Gogh. The spider is a notebook that details the only evidence of the forgery, a spider-shaped watermark on the back of the canvas. The mark proves the canvas instead belonged to another artist during van Gogh’s time and was stripped and repurposed by Palmer’s team to allow the van Gogh forgery to pass dating analysis. Palmer sends his team to kidnap Art and recover the notebook, though Art himself has no idea why he is being pursued. It is later revealed that Art’s father, an art expert hired to authenticate the painting, discovered the forgery and was subdued by Palmer’s men. He was able to hide the notebook in Art’s backpack and instructed his son to escape. Art witnessed the men taking his father and believed him to be dead. In the chaos of the evening, Art ran to the National Gallery of Art, and the shock of the evening’s events left him with amnesia.

Back at the museum, Palmer’s men deceive Art and Camille, impersonating officers and forcing the two into their car. The children escape their kidnappers by cleverly using a can of soda to short circuit the men’s stun gun and incapacitate them. In a series of high-paced chases, Art and Camille use their wits and whatever they find in arm’s reach—an umbrella, a fire alarm pull station, and hanging pendant lamps—to thwart three more members of Palmer’s team. The clues in Art’s backpack lead him to his father’s art studio where Art recovers his full memory and the significance of the spider, the notebook, and the titular “van Gogh deception.” He learns his father is still alive and bargains with Palmer to release his father in exchange for the notebook.

In the novel’s final act, Art lures Palmer and his co-conspirators back to the National Gallery of Art and chooses as their meeting place a gallery that exhibits a prized Leonardo da Vinci portrait. When the men arrive with his father, Art rips the da Vinci work off its stand and sets off the gallery’s security system. The gates enclose everyone in the gallery, and Detective Evans arrives with officers and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents to arrest Palmer and his men. Camille, whom Art instructed earlier to tip off Detective Evans, reunites with Art, and, to his father, Art introduces Camille as his friend.