Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Murder, Mischief and Mayhem: Recommendations From Margaret N.

http://bit.ly/1qUdWtb
A fallen spy
A missing masterpiece
A daring mission


Legendary spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon is in Venice repairing an altarpiece by Veronese when he receives an urgent summons from the Italian police. The eccentric London art dealer Julian Isherwood has stumbled upon a chilling murder scene in Lake Como, and is being held as a suspect. To save his friend, Gabriel must track down the real killers and then perform one simple task: find the most famous missing painting in the world.

Sometimes the best way to find a stolen masterpiece is to steal another one. . . .

The dead man is a fallen British spy with a secret: he has been trafficking in stolen artworks and selling them to a mysterious collector. Among those paintings is the world's most iconic missing masterpiece: Caravaggio's glorious Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence.

Gabriel embarks on a daring gambit to recover the Caravaggio and learn the identity of the collector. His search will take him on an exhilarating hunt—from the shimmering boulevards of Paris and London to the gritty criminal underworlds of Marseilles and Corsica, and finally to a small private bank in Austria where a dangerous man stands guard over the ill-gotten wealth of a brutal dictator. At his side is a brave young woman who survived one of the worst massacres of the twentieth century. Now, with Gabriel's help, she will be given a chance to strike a blow against a dynasty that destroyed her family.


http://bit.ly/1m5hr9X
The bestselling French phenomenon, winner of the Prix Lion Noir, now available in English for the first time...
When Madame Préau returns to her own house outside Paris after several years spent in a convalescent home, she immediately notices that the neighborhood has changed. Now, instead of a beautiful garden next door there is a new house. And she can see directly into her new neighbors' windows.

Madame Préau quickly feels that something isn't right. Her neighbors have two perfectly healthy children who play in the yard after school. But there is also a third child: a young boy who looks malnourished and abused, and tosses small stones at her window in an apparent call for help. The family denies his existence.

But is the little boy real, or merely a hallucination of a lonely, mentally unstable old woman cut off from her own beloved grandson?

When the police refuse to listen to her, Madame Préau decides to take matters into her own hands. She's determined to help the little boy, and she'll do anything to make sure he's safe...

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