Former Gallery Owner Linda Moore Brings Art World Thriller to Life in 'Five Days in Bogota'

In her second novel, Five Days in Bogotá, art expert, former gallery owner, and author, Linda Moore, takes readers into the vibrant city of Bogotá, Colombia, in this exciting art world thriller. Set in 1990, the story follows gallery owner and mother of two, Ally Blake, as she exhibits artists at a Bogotá art fair to acquire wealthy collectors. However, things go awry when her shipment from America is tampered with and a set of premium paintings end up in her crates. What ensues are shenanigans involving money laundering, drug lords, and drug cartels! Similarly to Ally, Moore was also an art gallery owner from San Diego, exhibited artists from Latin America, Spain and the United States, and traveled to Bogotá for an art fair, but unlike Ally, Moore was never kidnapped, albeit close. Moore explained, “I did not witness any violence… but we did get pulled over, I did get a packet from the U.S. Embassy. I’ve never had that happen in all my travels, telling me things like I wrote in that first chapter, and that had never happened to me before so it, sort of, set the stage for this unusual environment.”

So, why is the art world used so frequently as the backdrop for thrillers and espionage? According to Moore, “I think it has a couple of different elements to other valuable things that one might steal, or trade, or forge.. and that is that we tend to keep a lot secret and quiet, like collectors like to be anonymous. They don’t necessarily want the world to know. You probably experienced the idea that some artwork has sold at auction for an incredible millions and millions of dollars and no one knows who bought it, and that’s fairly typical, and that, of course, is very inviting to thieves and other criminals because they can take things. There’re also all kinds of unusual contrivances that make it possible to hide what you’ve owned…” Additionally, art can be forged, quite easily for contemporary works, which can also lead to criminality. While there is more technology nowadays that can rule out a forgery, Moore said, “It’s tough, but people are good at it, and they have fooled a lot of experts.”