Rome loses a magnificent altarpiece, Paris a great painting, and London its newest museum acquisition. Three apparently unrelated art thefts have more in common than anyone imagines, as investigators begin to discover a trail of bizarre clues, puzzles, forgeries, and double-crosses in an ever-deepening conspiracy.

Noah Charney has an "extensive knowledge of the art world's criminal underbelly...."

Twenty-seven year-old American NOAH CHARNEY holds degrees in art history from the Courtauld Institute and Cambridge University, and he has created the academic field of the history of art theft. He is the founding director of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA), the first international think tank on art crime whose board of trustees includes the respective art squad heads of the FBI, Carabinieri, and Scotland Yard, as well as renowned museum, art world, and criminology specialists.