Dying for Monet
Book 5 of Claudia Riess’s. art history mystery series opens on a gala evening auction at Laszlo’s, an upstart auction house in New York City. After a much sought-after Impressionist still life painting is without notice withdrawn from the auction block, its broker is found dead at the foot of an imposing statue in Laszlo’s courtyard. Amateur sleuths Erika Shawn and Harrison Wheatley are once again drawn into an investigation involving an art-related homicide, this time with one sharing an unnerving coincidence with violent crimes occurring abroad.
As Harrison searches for clues in the archives at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, Erika is on a stakeout in Brooklyn Heights gathering information on the owner of the hijacked still life. After Harrison experiences a disastrous encounter in London, he returns home, where he and Erika, along with a few of their usual cohorts, find themselves ever more deeply at odds with the movers and shakers on the dark side of fine arts commerce.
FALSE LIGHT
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Erika Shawn, art magazine editor and Harrison Wheatley, professor of art history, attempt to crack the long-un-deciphered code of prankish art forger, Eric Hebborn (1934-1996), which promises to reveal the whereabouts of a number of his brilliant counterfeits. But what starts out as an academic puzzler leads to far darker mysteries in the clandestine world of art crime, culminating in murder. As the couple navigate this sinister world, both their courage under fire and the stability of their relationship are tested. Read More…
STOLEN LIGHT
STOLEN LIGHT is a suspense novel set in the art world and involving murder, the Italian Renaissance, and the Cuban Revolution, as well as a love story.
In 1958 in Cuba, the main house of sugar plantation owner, American-born William Delaney is vandalized by a band of Castro’s rebels, who seize Delaney’s art collection to raise money for weapons. Delaney is killed during the incident, and his pregnant wife, fearing for her safety and that of her unborn child, flees Cuba, never to look back. Read More…
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LOVE AND OTHER HAZARDS
GLENDA FIELDSTON is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her seven-year-old daughter, ASTRID, who is inspecting the anatomically correct parts of a male statue. Glenda considers this an appropriate learning experience since Astrid, whose father is an anonymous sperm donor, has never seen a nude male. EUGENE LERMAN is walking by at a distance with his eight-year-old daughter, MEREDITH, a schoolmate of Astrid’s. Meredith spots Astrid and is grossed out. Eugene has a prudish twinge. Glenda and Eugene, who have never met, engage in long-range cursory assessments, and the families go their separate ways. Read More…
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SEMBLANCE OF GUILT
SEMBLANCE OF GUILT is the story of ELLEN DAVIS, a recently divorced local reporter who is set up as the murderer of a new friend, and with the help of a detective on the case, PETE SAKURA, finds herself in a race against time to uncover the evidence that will save her.
Ellen’s husband has recently left her for another woman, and she is trying to reassert her independence. She starts writing for the local newspaper, where one of her assignments is to cover weekly items in the police blotter. When she travels to the station to pick up the information, she meets her contact, Pete, a handsome, witty Japanese-American, and she is immediately drawn to him. Read More…
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RECLINING NUDE
Claudia’s first novel, RECLINING NUDE, was published by Stein and Day. Oliver Sacks, neurologist and author of Awakenings, commenting on the book, wrote: “…exquisite and delicate…It is a most courageous book, full of daring–a daring only possible to a passionate and pure heart.”
Married for twelve years, Joan Hiller is prompted to a new life of eroticism by a summer renter and embarks on a carefree sexual odyssey. Read More…
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