Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know

WHAT I LOVED:
My first brush with the idea of art history was in college. A brilliant classmate of mine who went on to be inducted into the university’s Hall of Fame and was also the school’s first Fulbright scholar did an independent project on art of the Holocaust–both produced during it and stolen during it. She went on to present this work and more at multiple conferences and won awards of it.

Khayyam Maquet, though? She’s got my old classmate beat. Not only is she doing the same work as a high school teen, she’s taking advantage of her family’s annual trip to Paris to solve a mystery of art history and prove to herself she is not everything the Young Scholar Prize judge said she is. Khayyam’s investigation of Delacroix’s Giaour series and an alleged mate owned by Dumas fell a bit flat thanks to a breadcrumb that turned out to be fake.

Isn’t she lucky she’s in the perfect place to hunt down the subject of her work with the same-named descendant of Dumas. With his help, she has access to resources others haven’t had before. She just might be falling in like with him too since her boyfriend Zaid has basically made himself her ex by ghosting her.

What can you even say about a novel this good? The art mystery at the story’s heart is enchanting and Khayyam in particular is a remarkable character, as is the mysterious Leila who shares narrating duties with her. Khayyam is a girl in pieces when the novel opens: a French and Indian and Muslim American girl who really feels the spaces of those identities, a girl with a broken heart, and a girl with an injured spirit thanks to the Young Scholar Prize fail.

Meanwhile, Leila is 200 years in the past and just lost her favored status in the Pasha’s harem. When the Pasha kills her lover during their attempted escape with Lord Byron, she’s got her pieces of self to pick up too. She clawed her way into influence and safety in the harem and now she’s got to do it all over again in the UK and France.

The question of who gets to tell whose story is at the heart of the novel as well. Khayyam has to stop and ask herself if Leila’s story is one for her or anyone else to tell, especially since the difficulty of tracking Leila down indicates to her Leila may not have wanted her story told. Her sections confirm it: she wants to keep her story to herself. After living a live with so many things controlled by others, she can control only who knows her story.

The relationship that blooms between Khayyam and Alexandre is an imperfect one and it’s not love. The secrets they keep from one another and the certain end of Khayyam’s time ensure that. But does it have to be? They are partners, friends, and brief flames who change one another’s lives. Most of us will encounter those who will only be part of our lives for a short time as friends or more but who change us indelibly.

FINAL VERDICT:
The book also features an author’s note presumably about the mystery at the heart of the story and what is real/not real, but I didn’t get to read it because my copy was an ARC. I’m not sure I care how much of the story is true or fictional, though. Ahmed weaves such an exciting, enchanting art history mystery that the truth comes second to the experience. As someone who once aspired to be a journalist and is careful about spreading misinformation, it startles me to say that.

If you’d like your YA mysteries with a little less of teenagers hunting down killers, you’re going to love Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know. I certainly did.