Art Crime

Late one afternoon in the winter of 2003, art critic Richard Dorment answered a telephone call from a stranger. The caller was Joe Simon, an American film producer and art collector. He was ringing at the suggestion of David Hockney, his neighbor in Malibu. A committee of experts called the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board had declared the two Warhols in his collection to be fake. He wanted to know why and thought Dorment could help.

When 28-year-old San Francisco Daily Morning Call reporter Mark Twain met Tom Sawyer at a local bathhouse in 1863, he was seeking a subject for his first novel. As Twain steamed, played cards, and drank beer with Sawyer (a volunteer firefighter, customs inspector, and local hero responsible for having saved 90 lives at sea), he had second thoughts about Shirley Tempest, his proposed book about a local girl firefighter, and began to envision a novel of wider scope.

If you enjoy reading suspenseful, action-packed thrillers that surprise and engage you with unexpected twists, gritty action, and cutting edge technologies, you’re why I write. THE KILLING CHASE can be read as a standalone novel, but is the second book in the Beach & Riley series after THE KILLING CODE. Alan Beach and Jake Riley are back! More than a year after shutting down the Devlin Conspiracy, Beach and his new partner, James Foxx, are hot on the trail of a brutal serial killer. The killer’s modus operandi is startlingly similar to THE KILLING CODE’s infamous “Orphan-maker” ...

“This author is sheer perfection when it comes to using descriptions and locations that are richly done and offering sharp details throughout the entirety of the story.” – Suspense Magazine When art recovery expert Laurel Beacham’s personal and professional worlds collide, she learns no good theft goes unpunished. Incomplete intel and a missing source compel her to make a huge mistake, and she’s left with a divided team. Every retrieved masterpiece has a price—and the cost of forgeries can be deadly. This time Laurel could lose not only her best lead, but also her most trusted ...

Although Erik Patko is still coming to terms with a heartbreaking tragedy, he begins his sophomore year of college with high hopes. He earns a headlining role in the drama club production of Curtain Drop, but while the musical is a comedy, the drama backstage is no joke. Scenery is tampered with, students are blackmailed, and four influential families are accused of bribing the dean. While his confidence is shattered and he struggles with his conflicting feelings for his roommate’s sister Priscilla, Erik must discover who’s behind the scandal before his Broadway dreams are derailed ...

This was supposed to be our happy ending. But one last fight stands in our way. I've been given a choice. Return home now or live with the blood of Dames on my hands. Tobias made a promise to protect me even if the cost is his own life. An Alpha protects his Dame. Always and forever. Undying is the final book in a trilogy. Untouched and Unbroken must be read first.

Sophie recently added an addition to her art store, and now plans to remodel the top floor into an apartment. But during demolition, the workers find three leather cases containing old illuminated manuscripts. Oh, and a skeleton! So now Sophie and her boyfriend, Detective Ben Sorenson, have not one, but two mysteries to solve. Can they put the pieces together and figure out who the thief and killer it is, before it's too late?

One hundred and thirty years ago Eadweard Muybridge invented stop-motion photography, anticipating and making possible motion pictures. He was the first to capture time and play it back for an audience, giving birth to visual media and screen entertainments of all kinds. Yet the artist and inventor Muybridge was also a murderer who killed coolly and meticulously, and his trial is one of the early instances of a media sensation.

In a French village, the body of a man shot through the head is disinterred by the roots of a fallen tree. A week later a famous art critic is murdered in a nearby house. The deaths occurred more than 70 years apart. Asked by a colleague to inspect the site of the former, forensics expert Enzo Macleod quickly finds himself embroiled in the investigation of the latter. Two extraordinary narratives are set in train - one historical, unfolding in the treacherous wartime years of occupied France, the other contemporary, set in the autumn of 2020 as France re-enters Covid lockdown.

Dashiell Hammett changed the face of crime fiction. In five novels published over five years as well as a string of stories, he transformed the mystery genre into literature and left us with the figure of the hard-boiled detective, from the Continental Op to Sam Spade - immortalized on film by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon - and the more glamorous Thin Man, also made iconic with the aid of Hollywood.

An inn keeper becomes involved in a game of espionage after picking up a mysterious hitchhiker. After surviving a nightmare of a date, Maxine Croft didn’t think her evening could get any worse…until she nearly hits a stranger on a dark back road. This unprecedented meeting would turn Max’s world upside down as she’s thrust into a world of murder, corruption, and deception within her own backyard. As she gets in deeper with an elite, special task force, Max inadvertently puts her sisters’ lives in danger. Will Max and her sisters become just more “collateral damage” to ...

There are four cousins in the Morse family: perfect Kenny, the preppy West Coast lawyer; James, the shy but brilliant medical student; his seductive, hard-drinking sister Audrey; and Teresa, youngest and most fragile, haunted by the fear that she has inherited the madness that possessed her father. Their grandfather summons them to his mansion at Owl's Point. None of them have visited the family estate since they were children, when a prized painting disappeared: a self-portrait by Goya, rumored to cause madness or death upon viewing.

Blood Shadows in Madrid A haunting mystery of betrayal, obsession, and the dark secrets that linger in Madrid’s shadowy corners When Diego Doria, a troubled detective from Málaga, receives a desperate call from his estranged girlfriend, Macarena, he can’t ignore it. She’s being hunted by figures from her past—women who claim to be Tlahuelpuchi, vampiresses from Mexican folklore. Driven by a mix of loyalty and unresolved feelings, Diego heads to Madrid, where the city’s glittering streets hide shadows deeper than he imagined. Madrid becomes a character in its own right: from the ...

Trois femmes vivaient dans un village. La première était méchante, la deuxième était menteuse, la troisième était égoïste. Elles possédaient pourtant un point commun, un secret en quelque sorte : toutes les trois rêvaient de fuir... Le jour paraît sur Giverny. Du haut de son moulin, une vieille dame veille, surveille. Le quotidien du village, les cars de touristes... Des silhouettes et des vies. Deux femmes, en particulier, se détachent : l'une, les yeux couleur nymphéa, rêve d'amour et d'évasion ; l'autre, onze ans, ne vit déjà que pour la peinture.

Five strangers entangled in the forger’s wicked web, each with a dangerous secret, and an apocalyptic flood threatening to reveal all. "A pulsating, breathless journey." --Historical Novel Society A wife on the run, a student searching for stolen art, a cleaner who has lined more than his pockets, a policeman whose career is almost over, and a guest who should never have received a wedding invite. In a race against time, and desperate to save themselves and all they hold dear, will their secrets prove more treacherous than the ominous floodwaters swallowing the historic city of Florence? ...

In the vibrant Los Angeles art scene, THIS IS A SETUP follows the journey of an up-and-coming anarcho- artist discovering profound purpose, thrilling mischief, and unexpected fortune along the way. As he continuously pushes the boundaries of his craft, seeking to outdo himself in mesmerizing spectacle with explosive and awe-inspiring artwork, his ambition leads him down a treacherous path, unwittingly entangling him in a sinister and deadly plot. Along the way, he must confront the consequences of his actions, challenging his perception of reality and the true intentions of those around him.

In 1827, James Bowie carved his way into American history at the Sandbar Fight, and soon every fighting man of the South and West had to have a knife like his. The bowie knife could cut like a razor, chop like a cleaver, and stab like a sword, and many considered it deadlier than a pistol at close range. So great was the dread it inspired that by 1838 it was banned in several states—a ban that did little to stanch the flow of blood.Bowie's story is well known, but what of the other cutters and stabbers of his day? Gunfighters have long been celebrated, but those who fought with the bowie ...

In 1994, director Peter Jackson released the film Heavenly Creatures, based on a famous 1950s matricide committed in New Zealand by two teenage girls embroiled in an obsessive relationship. This film launched Jackson's international career. It also forever changed the life of Anne Perry, an award-winning, best-selling crime writer, who at the time of the film's release was publicly outed as Juliet Hulme, one of the murderers. A new light was now cast, not only on Anne's life, but also her novels, which feature gruesome and violent deaths.

Arthur Fellig’s ability to arrive at a crime scene just as the cops did was so uncanny that he renamed himself “Weegee”, claiming that he functioned as a human Ouija board. Weegee documented better than any other photographer the crime, grit, and complex humanity of midcentury New York City. In Flash, we get a portrait not only of the man (both flawed and deeply talented, with generous appetites for publicity, women, and hot pastrami) but also of the fascinating time and place that he occupied....

8 years ago she ran to safety. Now Charlotte Montgomery’s past has caught up with her.Charlotte Montgomery was forced to leave everything behind to shield her son from a dangerous life. As an artist, she’s built a new world of safety and security for them both, far from the shadows that once haunted her. But the peace she’s fought so hard to maintain is shattered when her past comes crashing back. The Italian crime family she escaped from has reappeared, determined to pull her back into their web of deceit and crime. This time, they want her to participate in their money-laundering ...