When artist and writer Montgomery Maxton spent a lazy late summer afternoon in his Brooklyn apartment researching an unknown branch in his family tree he had no idea that the moment would lead to a stunning and forgotten 20th century story that would send him on a 21st century treasure hunt.


"Finding Iola" quickly but vividly weaves us through the rediscovered charmed life story of Montgomery Maxton’s cousin, Iola Leonard Sipple, who in 1914 at the age of 15 was discovered by a painter while she walked through a local park. The moment would launch her into being the most sought-after model in Cincinnati, reaching a Kardashian-level of fame during the Ragtime era and Roaring 20s before becoming a pioneering midcentury business-woman. Appearing in dozens of paintings by now world-famous artists, Maxton sets off on a treasure hunt for Iola’s most famous painting that had been missing since 2005—a stunningly beautiful 1918 portrait by James Hopkins of Iola wrapped in Alice Roosevelt’s white fur coat; a portrait that hung for decades at Cincinnati’s storied and North America’s most highly-rated restaurant, The Maisonette. Months into the search and with just an hour left in his self-imposed deadline to find it, a shocking moment that no one could see coming will leave readers falling even more in love with Iola.