Art History Thrillers

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.

A los trece años, la niñez de Charlie Quinn llegó a un brusco y desolador final. Dos hombres, con asuntos pendientes con su padre, que era abogado, irrumpieron en su casa y después de esa terrible noche el mundo de Charlie no volvió a ser el mismo. Ahora que ella también era abogada, se había propuesto defender a aquellos de los que nadie se preocupaba nunca. Por eso, cuando Flora Faulkner, una adolescente huérfana, le pidió ayuda, Charlie se acordó de su pasado y no fue capaz de decirle que no.

The cave of Lascaux may be closed to the public, but five scholars a day are allowed inside, and Nora Barnes has finagled an appointment. True, she may have fudged a bit in her letter to the authorities, but she does teach art history, and she isn’t about to miss her chance to see the world’s most famous prehistoric paintings. Nora and her high-spirited husband, Toby, are visiting the Dordogne, in the southern French region of the Aquitaine. Aware that the Dordogne’s renown for cave art is matched only by its reputation for delicious cuisine, the couple has also signed up for a cooking class at a nearby château.

In the magical and historically rich city of Siena, Italy, old paintings are as common as cobblestones. But what if some of those paintings are forgeries? And what if your employers at Restauro Lorenzetti, a respected firm of art conservators, might be smuggling antiquities? After colleague and roommate Ernst Mann is found dead in the street below their apartment balcony, Flora Garibaldi suspects her bosses are crooks. The Italian police, after ruling Flora innocent of murder, persuade her to spy on her employers.

An entertaining history of British thrillers from Casino Royale to The Eagle Has Landed, in which award-winning crime writer Mike Ripley reveals that, though Britain may have lost an empire, her thrillers helped save the world. With a foreword by Lee Child.

Spanish Netherlands, 1620s: raised by her father Lucas to know her mind, Antonia Vorsterman sees everything that goes on in her world - all the rivalries and jealousies that course through the artists' studios and workshops of Antwerp. Drawn into the lively household of the artist Peter Paul Rubens, whose work her father engraves for a living, Antonia begins to see a life of colour and possibility for herself - until Lucas entrusts her with a terrible secret that will alter the course of their family's future.

A Thrilling Journey into Malaga's Dark Past Where art, history, and dark secrets intertwine. Diego Doria is an art investigator whose life is anything but ordinary. With his deep expertise in occult mysteries, Diego is drawn into a dangerous web of history's untold secrets—rooted in the picturesque yet enigmatic city of Malaga. Beneath the sunlit plazas and serene coastlines lies a buried darkness that stretches back to the aftermath of World War II. When Diego embarks on his latest investigation, he uncovers a disturbing trail linked to the ratlines—the clandestine routes used by Nazis...

Do you want to learn more about how the great literary detective Sherlock Holmes was born and how Arthur Conan Doyle came to create him, but don’t have time to listen to huge, long biographies? Then let The History Journals take you on an hourly history tour of his life. Now fascinating as Sherlock Holmes undoubtedly is, and this journal will certainly take you on a journey of discovery following in the great man’s footsteps, there’s another story here, most certainly worthy of your attention.

Wooed away from a top job at a competing firm by Ed Roth with promises of breaking the glass ceiling when she succeeds him as the head of the investment bank Drake Carlson, Kate learns that she has real potential for the top spot. First, she must prove her worth by unconventionally putting together an IPO for a small games maker whose most valuable but unknown asset may be a painting stolen from a Jewish family as they fled Austria after the Nazi invasion. Kate’s professional challenges play out amid a family crisis: Her husband’s company is imploding and he may have to relocate to a remote part of China to save even a small portion of his business.