Art Crime

Following his recovery from a personal and professional trauma, DCI Cyril Bennett returns to discover a complex case involving the art world. Soon, he unearths a dark side of the industry where greed and dubious practices thrive and, where there is money to be made, violence and murder abound. Working their way through a maze of galleries, museums and the Internet, can Bennett’s team differentiate between real and fake?

Thieves of Baghdad immerses the listener into the rich culture, the colorful characters, the double-dealing, and the derring-do, to sort out once and for all what actually happened during the chaos of the Baghdad invasion, exactly how the thefts took place, and how the most notable objects were retrieved. We hear Bogdanos and his team going on raids and negotiating recoveries, blowing open safes, and mingling in the marketplaces, often encountering an assortment of rogues and villains.

“Midnight Requisition 2” is a STAND ALONE sequel. “Midnight Requisition” - Book One “Midnight Requisition 2: Amateur Night”- Book Two “Midnight Requisition 3: Circular Run” - Book Three “Midnight Requisition 4: Charlie Foxtrot” – Book Four A brother and sister duo team up to catch a potential kidnapper. After finally reuniting with her not-so-dead brother, Scorpio and her friends are taunted into helping him with his new case. A wealthy cattle rancher believes someone wants to abduct his daughter, but the team suspects her ex-boyfriend is pulling off an elaborate ...

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 Brushstrokes of Betrayal, art conservator Mia Santos uncovers a web of forgery and secrets after a museum break-in, drawing her into a tense alliance with Nicholas Crawford, a guarded historian tied to a powerful legacy. As hidden messages in a wartime painting spark danger and desire, Mia and Nicholas must navigate betrayal, romantic tension, and high-stakes revelations. Can their growing love survive the fallout of buried secrets—or will the truth destroy everything they’ve begun to build?

Five years behind bars, a rock-star fiancé, and a promised wedding at sea. What could possibly go wrong? I’m Claire Romero, an ex-con, becoming a famous singer aboard the King of the Deep. My life is finally back on track after my niece's confession set me free. Wolff Price, the grumpy billionaire rock-star, snatched me from obscurity and into his world of fame. We’re head over heels in love, performing music nightly on the world’s second largest cruise ship. But beneath the surface, danger lurks. Murder casts a chill over our sunny cruise, and art thieves plot, coiled like serpents....

You may ask, is there such a thing as an innocent crime? Perhaps the politics of the Donald Trump era can almost make a crime seem non-existent. Even if evidence proves otherwise… Then again, in this story a man is arrested for a felony he can’t remember committing—yet DNA wrongfully implies he’s guilty! As you dive into this book, you’ll discover how a naïve nineteen-year-old manages to develop the street smarts to help gain her father’s freedom; but not without the cost of impacting her wellbeing.

One late-summer’s evening, before the beginning of the new term, Dorothy Martin and her husband, retired police detective Alan Nesbitt, are guests at Sherebury University art department’s drinks party to introduce the new teaching assistant, sculptress Gillian Roberts. However, tragedy strikes on a tour of the sculpture department when the lift breaks down and a corpse is discovered at the bottom of the lift shaft. Dorothy and Alan become involved in the ensuing investigation, putting their local knowledge and sleuthing skills to good use once again.

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 ...

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.

Madame Katerina, Detective 'Nine Nails' McGray's most trusted clairvoyant, hosts a séance for three of Edinburgh's wealthiest families.The following morning everyone is found dead, with Madame Katerina being the only survivor. When questioned she alleges a tormented spirit killed the families for revenge. McGray, even though he believes her, must find a rational explanation that holds up in court, else Katerina will be sentenced to death.

Crime and Punishment, and Notes from Underground are two of the most famous novels written by Fyodor Dostoevsky, a Russian author widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. These three books, in particular, are often cited as among his greatest works.

From the acclaimed biographer - the fascinating, little-known story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and Queen Victoria herself to wonder: Can a novel kill?

With the decline of traditional journalism, there are precious few inquiring eyes watching government and the public service. How can any of us know how our tax dollars are being spent? But there is good news. For at least the past decade, governments at all levels have been busy publishing truckloads of data representing official policies and their outcomes. For the most part, that data is available in the public domain and just sits there, waiting for us to come and get it. This book was written with the hope and expectation that sophisticated data analytics tools can tame those ...

In researching his acclaimed true-crime books, Philip Carlo interviewed some of the most infamous criminals and killers of our times in prisons and on death rows throughout the country. He was able to forge trusting relationships with his subjects, enabling him to extract the facts behind their monstrous acts and identify what motivated them to commit their horrific crimes.

Kim Wall was a thirty-year-old Swedish freelance journalist with a rising career. Then, in the summer of 2017, she followed a story that led to an eccentric inventor in Copenhagen. Instead of writing the next days headline, she'd become one. As the bizarre events of Kim's murder unfolded, the world watched in shocked disbelief. For Kim's distraught parents, Ingrid and Joachim, it was a devastating personal struggle. In the ensuing months, day by grueling day, they had to come to terms with their loss, process the global media attention, and endure the investigation and trial.

A chance discovery of something unimaginable will steer Detective Patrick Gutteridge’s life down a path littered with memories of his past, memories he’s spent a decade trying to forget. For two years, Gloucester’s provincial streets have glowed to the media interest gifted by the works of an anonymous graffiti artist, Tick-Tock. But the art is changing, distorting, each piece becoming more perverse and contentious than the last. Only DI Gutteridge sees a pattern forming which points to something far more sinister looming on the horizon.

One bright Los Angeles day, a young Polish émigré named Viva is driving along the freeway when she’s flagged down by a dazzling, disheveled woman in green chiffon. The woman is Bobby Sleeper, a fellow Eastern European and an erstwhile art gallerist with a mysterious background and even more mysterious filmmaker husband. Within days the couple hire Viva as their assistant, then enlist her as an accomplice in an improbable scheme involving a long-lost Vermeer masterwork, a multi-million-dollar reward, and several shadowy ex-husbands.

From Benjamin Franklin's newspaper hoax that faked the death of his rival to Abbie Hoffman's attempt to levitate the Pentagon - pranksters, hoaxers, and con artists have caused confusion, disorder, and laughter in Western society for centuries. Profiling the most notorious mischief-makers from the 1600s to the present day, Pranksters explores how "pranks" are part of a long tradition of speaking truth to power and social critique.

Mark Sullivan, the co-author of James Patterson’s Private Games, has, in Robin Monarch, created a compelling new hero. Monarch is a world-class thief and a highly skilled operative - a man with skills, a rigid code of honor, powerful friends, and implacable enemies. In The Art of Rendition, Monarch is an agent for the CIA, called upon to use his unique skills to kidnap and interrogate a Russian nuclear scientist suspected of selling technology to the Iranians. But that’s only part of the challenge....