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DeWitt Agency Files #2
Stealing Ghosts
Dorotea DeVillardi is ninety-one years old, gorgeous, and worth a fortune. Matt Friedrich's going to steal her.
The Nazis seized Dorotea's portrait from her Viennese family, then the Soviets stole it from the Nazis. Now it's in the hands of a Russian oligarch. Dorotea's corporate-CEO grandson played by the legal rules to get her portrait back, but he struck out. So he's hired the DeWitt Agency to get it for him - and he doesn't care how they do it.
Now Matt and Carson, his ex-cop partner, have to steal Dorotea's portrait from a museum so nobody knows it's gone, and somehow launder its history so the client doesn't have to hide it forever. The client's saddled them with a babysitter: Dorotea's granddaughter Julie, who may have designs on Matt as well as the painting. As if this wasn't hard enough, it looks like someone else is gunning for the same museum - and he may know more about Matt and Carson's plans than he should.
Matt went to prison for the bad things he did at his L.A. art gallery. Now he has a chance to right an old wrong by doing a bad thing for the best of reasons. All he has to do is stay out of jail long enough to pull it off.
The Nazis seized Dorotea's portrait from her Viennese family, then the Soviets stole it from the Nazis. Now it's in the hands of a Russian oligarch. Dorotea's corporate-CEO grandson played by the legal rules to get her portrait back, but he struck out. So he's hired the DeWitt Agency to get it for him - and he doesn't care how they do it.
Now Matt and Carson, his ex-cop partner, have to steal Dorotea's portrait from a museum so nobody knows it's gone, and somehow launder its history so the client doesn't have to hide it forever. The client's saddled them with a babysitter: Dorotea's granddaughter Julie, who may have designs on Matt as well as the painting. As if this wasn't hard enough, it looks like someone else is gunning for the same museum - and he may know more about Matt and Carson's plans than he should.
Matt went to prison for the bad things he did at his L.A. art gallery. Now he has a chance to right an old wrong by doing a bad thing for the best of reasons. All he has to do is stay out of jail long enough to pull it off.
328 pages, Paperback
First published November 17, 2017
14 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
Lance Charnes
7 books97 followersI’ve been an Air Force intelligence officer, information technology manager, computer-game artist, set designer, Jeopardy! contestant, and now an emergency management specialist. I've had training in architectural rendering, terrorist incident response, and maritime archaeology, although not all at the same time. My Facebook author page (https://www.facebook.com/Lance.Charne...) features spies, archaeology, and art crime.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 15, 2018
Another twisty tale of thievery & art. While it is similar to the first one in the subject matter, this one takes us to different parts of Europe with completely different problems. I thought it was going to be in Mexico, but apparently that one went fine.
This caper, though... Wow. It's a tough job & winds up going way outside lines that are already pretty loose. Trying to keep up with everyone's motivations is tough since layers keep being revealed. Just when things seemed settled, something twists the action back up. Very nicely done.
Besides meticulous attention to detail, it's the characters that make the story. The main characters are likable, but human enough to do wrong or even bad things occasionally. Everyone is tarnished to some extent & some are just nasty, but in understandable ways. I never doubted a motivation or had trouble believing a single thing. Best of all, this applied even to small details like timing because a graphic file was bigger than expected so took longer to copy to a thumb drive. Sheer mastery.
I'm all caught up now. I've read all of Lance's books, the first one Doha 12 twice. He needs to write faster. I can't wait for the next one!
This caper, though... Wow. It's a tough job & winds up going way outside lines that are already pretty loose. Trying to keep up with everyone's motivations is tough since layers keep being revealed. Just when things seemed settled, something twists the action back up. Very nicely done.
Besides meticulous attention to detail, it's the characters that make the story. The main characters are likable, but human enough to do wrong or even bad things occasionally. Everyone is tarnished to some extent & some are just nasty, but in understandable ways. I never doubted a motivation or had trouble believing a single thing. Best of all, this applied even to small details like timing because a graphic file was bigger than expected so took longer to copy to a thumb drive. Sheer mastery.
I'm all caught up now. I've read all of Lance's books, the first one Doha 12 twice. He needs to write faster. I can't wait for the next one!
July 17, 2021
Definitely not as thrilling as the first of this series, but instructional about the world of art fraud.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews