THE FORGER

THE FORGER

Author profile: I haven't found anything about the author; he's unknown even on the Net. There's only his photo printed at the end of the book.

First edition: This book was written by Robert O'Neill in 1974 and the first edition for the publishing house "Longman" appeared in 1992.

Narrative modes: The book is structured in nineteen short chapters. There are lots of dialogue and descriptive parts that make the story more flowing and less boring.

Narrator: In the text we have a third person narrator who tells us the course of facts.

Setting of the story: The actions take place in England and in Switzerland, more precisely in Zurich. The period is not mentioned.

Description of the main characters:

Inspector Moore: He was a police's inspector who was looking for the famous forger Bruno Sharp. The book starts saying that Inspector Moore was a tall man of about thirty-five years old, nothing else.

David Rutland: David Rutland is the protagonist of the story and he has the difficult assignment to investigate on Sharp. David lived in the center of London, in Soho, and he did all sorts of work to earn some money; he immediately accepted Moore's proposal.

Bruno Sharp: He studied art in Holland and Italy where he learned the secrets of the old masters of painting. Soon, Sharp became a famous forger and he was sent to prison only for two years because police couldn't prove his guilt. When he came out, he went back to Switzerland and disappeared. He learned to David old techniques of painting.

Karen Sharp: Karen was Sharp's daughter. She was a beautiful, Olympic gymnast who used her talent to steal pictures. David fell in love with her.

Plot: Police inspector Moore was trying to arrest a famous forger called Bruno Sharp, who stole famous paintings from museums and put his own forgeries into their frames and, to catch him, he asked the help of the young artist David Rutland. Their was that David should work for the forger Sharp and find out what his secrets were and maybe find some proofs to catch him.

So he went to Switzerland and became Sharp's assistant; this was a dangerous job because he was observed and followed by criminals who worked for the forger's friend, Orton.
But there, he also improved his painting and he secretly maintained him in contact with the police in England.

Slowly, David learned Sharp's secrets and uncovered his mysterious past but, one day, he was captured by Orton's guards who brought him in a secret place to kill him.

With mastery, he succeeded in escaping in the snow and he stopped a man who called reinforcements; police arrived, arrested the two criminals and brought David to London.

There, Rutland helped inspector Moore to track down and arrest Bruno Sharp who, in that moment, was in England with his beautiful daughter to steal the picture The lady whit green eyes.

The book ends with the arrest of Bruno Sharp, his friend Orton and the two criminals while Karen, the girl that let David fell in love, disappeared.

Message of the book: I didn't find a message in this book; I think this is only a simple detective story without a moral.

Personal opinion: This is a book that I have appreciated a lot. The dialogues are very interesting and the text is written with an easy and comprehensible language.

The story is fascinating and the author is very skilled in to create situations of suspense and amazing turns of events. I really like mysterious stories and this book is the type of book that I prefer!