Yes, dear blog readers, your eyes are not deceiving you. Self finally, finally finished reading Con/Artist: A Memoir. It only took 10 days! At the end, Tony Tetro still owns four luxury cars. He found a second home in Puerto Rico. He vows: “In a few months I will return to London and visit the British Museum.”
Onward!
Self is only a few pages into her next read, her first Ben Macintyre book in aaaaages, The Spy and The Traitor. And it is already enthralling.
The main is a KGB operative named Oleg Gordievsky who, upon receiving his first foreign posting, in Copenhagen, decides to test the limits of his freedom by going to Copenhagen’s red-light district and entering a sex shop. Faster than you can say KGB-Operative-Enters-a-Sex-Store, he ends up walking out with three homosexual magazines, which he takes great delight in showing to his wife.
- Either PET (NOT the KGB, the Politiets Efterretningstjeneste — the Danish Security and Intelligence Service) was monitoring Copenhagen’s red-light district or the Danes were shadowing Gordievsky, because he was spotted entering the sex shop and buying homosexual porn magazines.
OOPSIE!
For the first time in Western intelligence files, “a question mark appeared alongside Gordievsky’s name.” Spotting an opening, the Danes thenceforward regularly threw young Danish men Gordievsky’s way, trying for “homosexual entrapment.” LOL
Prompted by his apparent taste for gay pornography, the Danes had set a honeytrap, one of the oldest, grubbiest, and most effective techniques in espionage.
PET could not understand why the honeytrap failed.
Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 
27 responses to “Sentence of the Day: Ben Macintyre”
Con/Artist – what a book and what chutzpah he had! Great post today.
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You have to hand it to the guy. You’re right: what chutzpah! But I love his enthusiasm and curiosity, undimmed even though I think he’s probably 70 now . . .
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Oh yes, totally agree. I have not yet finished reading and already have the feeling that this is one of those books that I won’t want to end. I think you understand having that feeling about some books.
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It is fun to meet someone else who is reading the book! I was a bit wistful at the end. I wish Mr. Tetro a long and happy life, and much time spent in the great museums of the world.
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What a wonderful sentiment about wishing him time in the great museums. And I would add also much time on the best seller lists. Glad to meet you, too!
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Because there was a span of years — about five years — when I was flitting from place to place, but I always returned to the British Museum and Great Russell Street. I’d bring my laptop and work at a concession stand table and get cheap sandwiches and coffee and write.
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What a perfect environment that must have been for the writer in you – your sentence reads like a moveable feast sort of experience.
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It was a fantastic space for me — antiquities all around, so if I hit a block in my writing, I’d take a break and walk around.
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I can imagine – so much inspiration there literally at your fingertips. Your post the other day about Tony wishing he could go back to London for the British Museum – and you saying the same thing gives a feel for what that Museum means to you. Thank you again for your posts about Con/Artist. My late father was an art historian and my late mother an art teacher. I wish I could have shared Tony’s story with them. Their talents sadly skipped my generation.
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Your father was an art historian and your mother an art teacher. No wonder you are drawn to this book. Funny but, Tony had a real appreciation for art, I learned a lot from his explanations of how he attempted to replicate Chagall, Picasso, etc. One artist he didn’t bother with was van Gogh, I wonder why?
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Your question about Van Gogh is very interesting and insightful. I wonder what Tony would say if asked. I learned a lot from reading the book, too. He had a natural talent and curiosity at a very young age and went all out when he needed to – like sourcing authentic art papers to ensure the appearance of legitimacy. And he seemed so cheeky – like signing his initial works using the signature of that forger who was well-known at the time. And it was a real eve-opener when he first revealed that gallery owners were in cahoots with his subterfuge. How naive I was to have felt surprised by that. What a character. What a book. I’m so glad you posted about it and enjoy discussing it with you.
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Yes, that was pretty surprising, how cynical gallery owners were about the provenance of the paintings. They didn’t care abt the artists, they only cared abt the money. They were just one step above Tony Trento, imho. But Trento’s process, how generous he was to share that in a book! He would have made an excellent spy.
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You’re right – an excellent spy or even a double-agent, playing both sides of the street. And those gallery owners definitely only cared about the money, and had no great love of art. Tony’s story would make quite the art crime/heist film. He is quite the gutsy personality and so are some of those equally fraudulent gallery owners. I can envision a talented ensemble of a-list movie actors bringing some of those owners to life.
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Oops, I should have said “double agent” — because he would have wanted to be paid A LOT for his work, that would have lessened his efficiency as a straight-out spy. I agree w/ you that this book would make a great movie. Paging Steven Soderbergh! Or the guy who directed “The Italian Job” . . .
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Soderbergh would be an excellent choice! And in a way Tony continues to rake it in – first for the various art forgery sales, now for the memoir, and surely the film rights – which may have already been sold? I’m not even halfway through the book and am already hungry for more – maybe a sequel, definitely a film. I cannot recall the last time I felt that about a book. And definitely a double-agent.
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I think he may have ruined his chances to be a double agent by writing this book, ha! Loose lips etc. But it’s a very, very entertaining book. He says he lives very simply now, in a nondescript townhouse in Claremont. Next time I’m in Claremont — that’s where son met his wife, they were both in grad school there — I will look at it with NEW EYES.
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You’re right about loose lips, etc., but Tony seems to have had a penchant for disguise. Even the top restaurant critics can maintain anonymity. I bet if Tony lives simply there in Claremont, he would be hard pressed to never visit a museum or restaurant. Who knows, you or your son and daughter-in-law could rub elbows with him in a small cafe in Claremont without having a clue? I wonder if the local newspaper there is on to him. What a life, what a character.
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ALL his printers were local (Claremont-based). Can’t wait to tell son and DIL. I visited more than a few times, never knew there was a Claremont demi-monde.
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Claremont had ALL of his printers? Oh, the stories they could tell. Claremont as a hotbed of art forgery? Do tell your son & DIL, and you’re going to have to visit again with a new appreciation… Making art is in his very DNA I think – or rather faking art. Can you imagine how irresistible the new forgery modality might be to someone like Tony? Think about how tools like the new AI programs would be child’s play to him. Look at the art world uproar at AI “faked” Vermeers: https://hyperallergic.com/805030/mauritshuis-museum-under-fire-for-showing-ai-version-of-vermeer-masterpiece/ A person like Tony could sit at a computer and create in minutes artworks that took days when he was in his prime.
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The funny thing is, I went to so many events at Claremont, and had NO idea a world-class art forger was living right THERE. What I would have given to know THAT. (And Tetro probably never went to a single event at Claremont, LOL. Wonder if they sell his book at the bookstore) He was a little wistful at the end. Why should he be, though? He has a great life, still. FOUR luxury cars, and none of them in danger of being repossessed!
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Ben Macintyre’s Spy and Traitor is a must read for espionage genre cognoscenti and has even been lauded by none other than John le Carré as “the best true spy story I have ever read”. John le Carré certainly knew a ton about writing high quality espionage thrillers and Ben deserved that accolade in this instance. However, as a spy in his own right David Cornwell was an extraordinarily long chalk behind Oleg Gordievsky. Mind you, as the son of a fraudster, a known associate of the infamous London gangsters the Kray Brothers, David Cornwell was not necessarily as good at spying as he might have thought when looking in the mirror. An intriguing brief News Article dated 31 October 2022 about all that (about Pemberton’s People in MI6 et al) is well worth reading in TheBurlingtonFiles website.
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Very interesting — I did not know all this abt David Cornwall! (“son of a fraudster” etc.)
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You may be interested in what is now being called the largest art forgery in the world. It is ironic that there is a Chagall connection. From The Art Newspaper: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/03/08/canadian-police-bust-art-forgery-ring-norval-morrisseau
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Wow, so interesting! And so sad that one of the suspects is a member of the late painter’s family.
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Shades of a Greek Tragedy with that family member’s involvement. I do sense some hyperbole in it being declared the largest forgery “in world history,” though… The documentary film “There Are No Fakes” is on YouTube. The story about the film says “The film’s host of colourful characters includes ivory-tower art historians, drug-addled forgers, thuggish art dealers and a predatory villain at the centre…”
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And the beat goes on – this time in Spain: https://www.cnn.com/style/article/spain-fraud-police-velazquez-goya-scli-intl/index.html One can’t help but wonder if there might be any of Tetro’s works lurking about somewhere.
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There are probably some of Tetro’s still floating about. What an interesting life. Thanks for sharing the article.
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