Membership of the prestigious Titian Committee is normally considered a high honour. Normally, that is, until two of its members end up dead and someone seems to be taking the idea of backstabbing a little too far.
Flavia de Stefano of Rome's Art Theft Squad is sent to find out why. She calls upon the help of dealer Jonathan Argyll, in Venice to buy a picture from the Marchesa di Mulino. But the sudden theft of the Marchesa's collection sets Flavia and Jonathan on a tortuous trail to uncover the truth.
A further death threatens the very survival of the Committee itself, as well as offering the tantalizing possibility of an undiscovered Titian – a mysterious composition that may have been suppressed for 'moral' reasons....
Iain Pears won the Getty Scholarship to Yale University and worked for Reuters in Rome. He is the author of the bestseller ‘An Instance of the Fingerpost’. He lives with his wife and son in Oxford.