A wickedly ingenious thriller involving a lost masterpiece and a plot to use it for revenge.

Charles Vermeille is the world’s expert on seventeenth-century French master Claude Lorrain, one of the most copied painters in history. Handsome, self-assured—arrogant, some might even say—and a model of probity, Vermeille has the last word on Lorrain’s works; he determines which are authentic, which are fake. Upon his pronouncements rests not only his own reputation but also those of museums, collectors, and auction houses around the world. Millions of dollars can be at stake. When Vermeille begins receiving photographs of his adored son in the mail—no demands, no threats, only photos—he begins to suspect a connection between them and his bankable appraisal of Lorrain’s paintings, one of which, believed lost, has just miraculously turned up. Is someone forcing him to choose between his reputation and the life of his son? Everyone has his enemies. Art appraisers have more than their fair share.

Set in a world where inflated egos, high art, and big money intersect, A Masterpiece of Revenge is a classic psychological mystery.

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