SUITABLE FOR FRAMING

by Robert S. Levinson

Think Hitchcock on speed.

Charlie Collier, a private dealer in art masterpieces, is flying to Honolulu to deliver a Raphael Madonna to a client by a deadline that, if missed, can cost him a twenty-million dollar sale. Grounded in L.A. by rainstorms, he visits an auction gallery and recognizes that masterworks from the collection of the late Roman January—due to go on the block tomorrow—are fakes.

Over the next twelve hours, Charlie is pursued by a murderous gang of art robbers, who want him dead because of what he’s discovered, and LAPD detectives, after him on charges of art theft, kidnapping, robbery, attempted murder, and trafficking in stolen art.

Along the way, romances blossom for Charlie with a seductive auction gallery director and Roman January’s intoxicating widow while he twice comes within a trigger-pull of death, ignites a terrorist scare at Los Angeles International Airport, and is drafted into an Interpol art sting operation that climaxes at a County Museum of Art opening night gala and a life-threatening battle above the deadly La Brea Tar Pits.

And that’s only the half of it.

117 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 23, 2012

About the author

Robert S. Levinson is the best-selling author of the Neil Gulliver and Stevie Marriner series of mystery-thriller novels, the most recent, HOT PAINT, dealing with a suite of Andy Warhol prints that are the key to locating art masterpieces missing for more than half a century. He is currently serving a second term as president of the Mystery Writers of America-Southern California chapter, is on MWA's national board of directors, and wrote and produced the organization's 57th Annual Edgar Awards (May 1 in New York).