Doors Open

Doors Open is a 2008 novel by crime writer Ian Rankin. It is his first stand-alone thriller in over 10 years. The story was originally published as a serial novel in The New York Times Magazine.

Plot outline

Mike Mackenzie is a software entrepreneur who has sold his company for a substantial amount of money, but is now bored and looking for a new thrill. His new-found wealth has funded a genuine interest in art so when his friend Professor Robert Gissing presents him with a plan for the perfect crime, he willingly helps set that plan in motion.

With a vast collection but limited wall space, the National Gallery (on the TV adaptation, a Scottish bank) has many more valuable works of art in storage than it could ever display. The plan is to stage a heist at the Granton storage depot on "Doors Open Day" during which a selected group of paintings will be "stolen". The gang will then give the appearance of having panicked and fled without the works of art, but will have switched the real paintings with high quality forgeries good enough to convince anyone investigating the matter that no theft has been committed.

Doors Open (film)

Doors Open is a 2012 Scottish thriller heist film directed by Marc Evans, starring Douglas Henshall, Stephen Fry,Lenora Crichlow and Kenneth Collard. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ian Rankin, about a self-made millionaire, an art professor and a banker, who come together to undertake an audacious art heist. The film was commissioned by ITV and produced by Stephen Fry's Sprout Pictures production company. It was officially released on 26 December 2012 in the UK.

Plot

After an evening’s drinking with Professor Gissing (Fry), an art expert, and banker Allan Cruickshank (Collard), self-made millionaire Mike McKenzie (Henshall) and his friends dream up a plot to rip-off one of the most high-profile targets in the country – Edinburgh’s private art collection owned by a national bank. When he hears the love of his life, art consultant and auctioneer Laura Stanton (Crichlow), has returned to Edinburgh, his whole world is turned upside down and he'd risk anything to get her back.