{"id":1320,"date":"2011-11-27T08:57:08","date_gmt":"2011-11-27T16:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.orcutt.net\/weblog\/?page_id=1320"},"modified":"2026-02-11T19:56:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:56:59","slug":"about-a-real-piece-of-work","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/the-dakota-stevens-mystery-series\/about-a-real-piece-of-work\/","title":{"rendered":"About A Real Piece of Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The Ama\u00adzon Best\u00adseller that launched a series\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Real Piece of Work<\/strong><\/em>, the 1st nov\u00adel in the Dako\u00adta Stevens Mys\u00adtery Series by Chris Orcutt, delves into a world of forged and stolen art, secret iden\u00adti\u00adties and mur\u00adder.<\/p>\n

At the close of a case in Key West, PI Dako\u00adta Stevens and his asso\u00adciate Svet\u00adlana Kr\u00fcsh return to New York, where the city is in the grips of its worst bliz\u00adzard since 1888. When an art deal\u00ader stum\u00adbles in from the storm and hires them to find a stolen paint\u00ading, they think it\u2019s just anoth\u00ader case, but in no time they\u2019re neck-deep in a world of unsta\u00adble artists, seduc\u00adtive gallery own\u00aders, mys\u00adte\u00adri\u00adous col\u00adlec\u00adtors, dead\u00adly hench\u00admen and a stun\u00adning femme fatale.<\/p>\n

In a thrill-ride of a mys\u00adtery that leads from Man\u00adhat\u00adtan to the Catskills to Wash\u00ading\u00adton, D.C., what begins as the sim\u00adple recov\u00adery of a paint\u00ading soon reveals an inter\u00adna\u00adtion\u00adal art scam and a chill\u00ading secret hid\u00adden for decades.<\/p>\n

Fast-paced and intel\u00adli\u00adgent, A Real Piece of Work<\/em> is a pristine\u00adly well-writ\u00adten page-turn\u00ader for read\u00aders who like a great sto\u00adry told with lit\u00ader\u00adary style.<\/p>\n

\u201cAction, lust, dan\u00adger, style and wit\u00adty repar\u00adtee, Orcut\u00adt\u2019s A Real Piece of Work<\/em> is a work of art. (5 stars)\u201d \u2014 IndieRead\u00ader<\/p>\n

Buy: <\/strong><\/span>Ama\u00adzon<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Excerpt from A Real Piece of Work<\/em><\/h1>\n

Before the Lati\u00adno took anoth\u00ader step, I threw my cof\u00adfee in his face and kicked him in the balls. Shay gasped. He dou\u00adbled over, his face con\u00adtort\u00ading with anger and nau\u00adsea. Knees bent, he shot out a jab with some horse\u00adrad\u00adish on it. I tried slip\u00adping it, but it grazed the side of my head, his knuck\u00adles prac\u00adti\u00adcal\u00adly dig\u00adging grooves in my scalp. Luck\u00adi\u00adly his bud\u00addies stayed on the side\u00adlines. Wait\u00ading until he was upright, I shuf\u00adfled inside him and drove my elbow through his jaw. I felt the sur\u00adpris\u00ading\u00adly soft crunch of bone, and he land\u00aded hard on the walk\u00adway.<\/p>\n

Before I could take a defen\u00adsive stance, the oth\u00ader two moved in swing\u00ading the ham\u00admers. I sprang back\u00adwards, but not enough. The claw of one gashed my par\u00adka across the chest. Half-run\u00adning, half-skat\u00ading to the rusty bar\u00adrel, I grabbed a length of two-by-four and spun around. As they charged me I rammed the wood end-first into the white guy\u2019s bald head, which col\u00adlid\u00aded into the black guy\u2019s bald head. Dazed, they dropped their ham\u00admers and crum\u00adpled into the snow\u00adbank.<\/p>\n

God for\u00adgive me, but it was the best 8\u2011ball shot I\u2019d ever made.<\/p>\n

Mean\u00adwhile, I\u2019d for\u00adgot\u00adten about the Lati\u00adno. When I turned around, he pound\u00aded me on the thigh with a ham\u00admer, right on the mus\u00adcle. I buck\u00adled to one knee. The wood clonked on the stoop. The pain was so intense that I want\u00aded to scream, but couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Enough of this shit.<\/i> I yanked my coat open, reveal\u00ading the .45 revolver. The Lati\u00adno smiled at me with a scald\u00aded face. He dropped the ham\u00admer. I got slow\u00adly to my feet, strug\u00adgling to hide the pain. My eyes were tear\u00ading as I caught my breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I\u2019m only say\u00ading this once. You go back to this Mr. Talese\u2026you tell him Miss Con\u00adnol\u00adly will be staying\u2026till her lease is up. Got me?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lati\u00adno man mum\u00adbled an affir\u00adma\u00adtive, but the oth\u00ader two were too stunned to answer. I limped past them, up the steps. \u201cNow get lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inside I stopped at the foot of the stairs and hung onto the ban\u00adis\u00adter.<\/p>\n

\u201cDamn that smarts.\u201d I wiped my eyes.<\/p>\n

Shay sat on the stairs watch\u00ading me. \u201cYou burned that guy with your cof\u00adfee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou use whatever\u2019s avail\u00adable, Miss Con\u00adnol\u00adly. Please, give me a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel bad. What can I do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGo away.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is A Real Piece of Work<\/em> based in fact?<\/h1>\n

Yes. While this is a work of fic\u00adtion, it is also the prod\u00aduct of won\u00adder\u00ading \u201cwhat if\u201d in rela\u00adtion to a num\u00adber of his\u00adtor\u00adi\u00adcal facts. In a famous 1964 Play\u00adboy<\/em> inter\u00adview, the bril\u00adliant Vladimir Nabokov had this to say about the mys\u00adte\u00adri\u00adous process by which he began to assem\u00adble a work of fic\u00adtion:<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I know is that at a very ear\u00adly stage of the nov\u00adel\u00ad\u2019s devel\u00adop\u00adment I get this urge to gar\u00adner bits of straw and fluff\u2026After the first shock of recognition\u2014a sud\u00adden sense of \u2018this is what I\u2019m going to write\u2019\u2014the nov\u00adel starts to breed by itself\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

For me, the two main \u201cbits of straw and fluff\u201d were these:<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Paul Gauguin\u2019s \u201cVase de Fleurs,\u201d one of the paint\u00adings Ely Sakhai com\u00admis\u00adsioned for a forgery.<\/p><\/div>\n

1. The fraud com\u00admit\u00adted by con\u00advict\u00aded art deal\u00ader Ely Sakhai.<\/p>\n

2. Even after 60 years (since the end of WWII), over 100,000 works of art were still miss\u00ading; yet, pre\u00advi\u00adous\u00adly lost works were being dis\u00adcov\u00adered with reg\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adi\u00adty.<\/p>\n

There were many oth\u00ader bits of straw and fluff that con\u00adtributed to the nov\u00adel\u00ad\u2019s coa\u00adlesc\u00ading, includ\u00ading the Mon\u00adu\u00adments Men (now the sub\u00adject of a major motion pic\u00adture), the Munich Cen\u00adtral Col\u00adlect\u00ading Point, and the Quedlin\u00adburg Hoard; how\u00adev\u00ader, once I became curi\u00adous, it was real\u00adly the arti\u00adcles and gov\u00adern\u00adment records them\u00adselves that prod\u00added me.<\/p>\n

While writ\u00ading the nov\u00adel, I col\u00adlect\u00aded over 2,000 pages of research on art loot\u00ading dur\u00ading WWII, art forg\u00ading, and resti\u00adtu\u00adtion. Sources of mate\u00adr\u00adi\u00adal include the Nation\u00adal Archives, the Nation\u00adal Gallery Library and the Met\u00adro\u00adpol\u00adi\u00adtan Muse\u00adum of Art web\u00adsite.<\/p>\n

I found this to be a fas\u00adci\u00adnat\u00ading sub\u00adject, and hope\u00adful\u00adly you will, too. To that end, if you pur\u00adchase the nov\u00adel, you\u2019ll receive a pass\u00adword (pre\u00advent\u00ading spoil\u00aders) that will give you access to PDFs of the dozens of gov\u00adern\u00adment reports and oth\u00ader doc\u00adu\u00adments I con\u00adsult\u00aded in writ\u00ading the book. One exam\u00adple I can give you (with\u00adout cre\u00adat\u00ading a spoil\u00ader) is this PDF of Art Claims Filed with US Govt by 1956<\/a>. It\u2019s a HUGE file show\u00ading close to 10,000 claims of lost art, so the idea that thou\u00adsands of pieces are still float\u00ading around in the art world isn\u2019t near\u00adly as far-fetched as it might seem.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Does the story borrow at all from your own life?<\/h1>\n
\"Inside

Inside the FBI crime lab.<\/p><\/div>\n

In a way, yes. Grow\u00ading up, I thought I want\u00aded to become an FBI field agent and\/or a sci\u00aden\u00adtist at the FBI Lab. In col\u00adlege, I start\u00aded out as a foren\u00adsic chem\u00adistry major and also took cours\u00ades in crim\u00adi\u00adnol\u00ado\u00adgy and crim\u00adi\u00adnal\u00adis\u00adtics. I spent sev\u00ader\u00adal weeks shad\u00adow\u00ading a sci\u00aden\u00adtist with the Mass\u00ada\u00adchu\u00adsetts State Crime Lab, vis\u00adit\u00ading the lab sev\u00ader\u00adal times and watch\u00ading him tes\u00adti\u00adfy in court.<\/p>\n

By the time I grad\u00adu\u00adat\u00aded, with a degree in phi\u00adlos\u00ado\u00adphy, I was more inter\u00adest\u00aded in read\u00ading about detec\u00adtives<\/a> than I was in becom\u00ading one, so the Dako\u00adta Stevens series rep\u00adre\u00adsents some\u00adthing of Robert Frost\u2019s \u201cThe Road Not Tak\u00aden.\u201d<\/p>\n

Put anoth\u00ader way, James Joyce said that all fic\u00adtion is \u201cimag\u00adined auto\u00adbi\u00adog\u00adra\u00adphy,\u201d so the Dako\u00adta books are how I\u2019d like to imag\u00adine my life might have turned out had I gone through with my FBI plans.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What bonus material does the novel include?<\/h1>\n

At the end of the nov\u00adel, in the \u201cAbout the Nov\u00adel\u201d sec\u00adtion, there is a pass\u00adword that will give you access to the Dako\u00adta Stevens case files, where you\u2019ll find dozens of arti\u00adcles and gov\u00adern\u00adment doc\u00adu\u00adments used in the research for the book.<\/p>\n

-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ama\u00adzon Best\u00adseller that launched a series\u2026 A Real Piece of Work, the 1st nov\u00adel in the Dako\u00adta Stevens Mys\u00adtery Series by Chris Orcutt, delves into\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":2835,"menu_order":43,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1320","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1320"}],"version-history":[{"count":115,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9986,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1320\/revisions\/9986"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}