Timothy Miller, author of The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter, is my guest blogger today. I hope you enjoy his conspiracy theory as much as I did.

Timothy Miller is a native of Louisiana and a graduate of Loyola University in New Orleans. The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter (Feb. 1, 2022; Seventh Street Books) is his second mystery that features none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most beloved character — Sherlock Holmes. Miller has directed and designed lighting for plays in New Orleans and Chicago. The feature film of his screenplay At War with the Ants won a Silver Remi Award at Houston’s Worldfest. His screenplays have placed in several contests including five times as a semifinalist in the Academy’s prestigious Nichol Fellowship. He has taught English in Milan and has written for the Italian design magazine Glass Style.

Thank you, Timothy, for taking time to write this piece.

Vincent Van Gogh did not commit suicide. He was murdered.

And I can prove it.

How? By fudging the facts. Creating doubt. Promulgating  conspiracy theories.

Historical fiction writers do it every day.

Let’s face it, we’re deep in conspiracy theories these days, and more and more people are latching on to conspiracies to explain the world around them. Conspiracy theories are a growth industry. Unless the market is being manipulated by the Russians, or lizard people, which would explain a lt.

A good conspiracy theory does explain a lot, the more phenomena the better, no matter how disparate they may be.  5G causes Covid is good; 5G causes Covid and chemtrails and weight gain is even better. It’s more complete and tidy than reality, which has a lot of ragged edges. Truth is always stranger than fiction.

When I was growing up, there was just one conspiracy theory, the mother of them all, the Kennedy assassination theory. It had it all: the Mafia, the CIA, Cuba, and LBJ. Then came the faked moonshot theory. Then it snowballed, so nowadays we’re wondering what’s going on in the basement of our favorite pizza parlors. As faith in our institutions, the state, the church, the school, the military has waned, conspiracy theories have rushed in to fill the vacuum.

But how do these even get started? I’ll tell you. At least I’ll tell you my theory, and it’s a pretty good one, because I’m a professional conspiracy theorist. I write historical fiction.

Now don’t get your hopes up. I can’t explain the really loony theories. Those are just loony. But a lot of theories are built around a kernel of truth. The truth is the bait. What’s needed is a selective eye. Science takes a set of facts and tries to build a theory around it. Conspiracy theorists start with the theory and tries to fit the facts to it. Maybe the facts need to be bent some. Maybe they need to be twisted all out of shape. Hey, they’re still facts.

I didn’t start my journey with a theory, actually. I started with a question, something that didn’t seem right. Why, I thought to myself, if he wanted to make a sacrifice to his lady love, did Van Gogh cut off an ear? An artist would cut out an eye. That would make a real sacrifice.

And there I was, off to the races. Because that’s all you need: doubt about the accepted story. And it doesn’t have to be informed doubt. Just as long as it’s plausible. What if he didn’t cut off his own ear? He was living with Gauguin at the time, they had just had an argument, and Gauguin had been trying to teach him saber dueling. And as soon as it happened, Gauguin got the hell out of town.

Gauguin did it!

What about him shooting himself? From the evidence, he was shot from several feet away, from above—and the gun was never found.

Is it possible then that Van Gogh was not mad? That there was a conspiracy to make him think he was mad? Why?

He must have known something. Something criminal. Something big, involving most if not all of his friends. Most of his friends were fellow artists.

A giant forgery ring! Easy peasey. Then I ignore or soft-pedal facts that don’t agree. Van Gogh had himself committed to the madhouse for a year. While there, he often had fits of violence toward his attendant, or he tried to swallow his paints. He lived for three days after he shot himself, and never accused anyone else. Of course, I do explain these away in my book (which you might like to read). And I don’t need to disprove facts. Only create doubt about their veracity.

And the biggest stretch of all, that there was a giant forgery ring. There’s no evidence for that at all. Of course not. That would have been hushed up by the state.

Now the question you’ll ask is: what do I believe? I first began this story (as a screenplay) some twenty years ago. Since then, scholars have questioned Gauguin’s role in the ear incident. A new biography asserts that he was killed (although manslaughter might be a more apt description than murder, and their killer and motive differ from mine.)

So my questions aren’t crazy. But I did make up the answers. I would say more than likely Van Gogh was bipolar, and possibly epileptic as well, although whether his conditions led to his purported actions, I can’t decide. It would be a fascinating study to try to match his letters and paintings with manic and depressive periods.

But that’s not my task. My task is to create conspiracy theories. I hope you read them and spread them among the general population. It’s better than “Paul is dead”, if not quite so juicy as Roswell.

THE STRANGE CASE OF THE DUTCH PAINTER

(Seventh Street Books — Feb. 1, 2022)

A fine tale, stylishly written.” — Booklist

Paris, 1890. When Sherlock Holmes finds himself chasing an art dealer through the streets of Paris, he’s certain he’s smoked out one of the principals of a cunning forgery ring responsible for the theft of some of the Louvre’s greatest masterpieces. But for once, Holmes is dead wrong.

He doesn’t know that the dealer, Theo Van Gogh, is rushing to the side of his brother, who lies dying of a gunshot wound in Auvers. He doesn’t know that the dealer’s brother is a penniless misfit artist named Vincent, known to few and mourned by even fewer.

Officialdom pronounces the death a suicide, but a few minutes at the scene convinces Holmes it was murder. And he’s bulldog-determined to discover why a penniless painter who harmed no one had to be killed–and who killed him. Who could profit from Vincent’s death? How is the murder entwined with his own forgery investigation?

Holmes must retrace the last months of Vincent’s life, testing his mettle against men like the brutal Paul Gauguin and the secretive Toulouse-Lautrec, all the while searching for the girl Olympia, whom Vincent named with his dying breath. She can provide the truth, but can anyone provide the proof? From the madhouse of St. Remy to the rooftops of Paris, Holmes hunts a killer—while the killer hunts him.

THE STRANGE CASE OF THE DUTCH PAINTER

Seventh Street Books — Feb. 1, 2022

Paperback: $17.95, Kindle $9.99 ISBN: 978-1645060215

Connect with Timothy Miller online:

Website: TheStrangeCaseOfSherlock.com
Facebook: @timotheemiller
Twitter: /timotheemiller