Ocean State Libraries

Isabel Dalhousie now has a newborn son and has been released as editor of the Review of applied ethics. While attending an art auction she finds two paintings from a now deceased artist and investigates to see if they are forgeries.

"When a slam-bang of a crime brings a beautiful new client into Stone Barrington's office, little does he know his association with her will pull him into a far more serpentine mystery in the exclusive world of art. It's a business where a rare find could make a career -- and a collection -- and mistakes in judgment are costly. And under its genteel and high-minded veneer lurks an assortment of grifters and malfeasants eager to cash in on the game....

Forgery is a provocative presence in the art world that captures attention in the press and inspires books about the exploits of famous fraudsters as well as scholarly articles and monographs. But missing until now has been a big-picture look at the phenomenon of art forgery. The Many Faces of Art Forgery provides a unique treatment that features historical highlights, philosophical insights, psychological profiles, economic theories, and legal statutes...

Boston painter Claire Roth has survived financially by painting reproductions, so when influential gallery owner Aiden Markel arrives with a bizarre proposal--her own show if she will forge a copy of a Degas, one of the pictures stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum--she says yes. As she works, Claire and Aiden become lovers, but she doesn't tell him about her discovery that the stolen Degas is itself a copy. This knowledge is Claire's lifeline...

"Art scams are today so numerous that the specter of a lawsuit arising from a mistaken attribution has scared a number of experts away from the business of authentication, and with good reason. Art scams are increasingly convincing and involve incredible sums of money. The cons perpetrated by unscrupulous art dealers and their accomplices are proportionately elaborate. The Art of the Con tells the stories of some of history's most notorious yet untold...

"By day, Judith Rashleigh is a put-upon assistant at a prestigious London art house. By night, she's a hostess at one of the capital's notorious champagne bars. Desperate to make something of herself, Judith knows she has to play the game. She's transformed her accent and taught herself about wine and the correct use of a dessert fork, not to mention the art of discretion. She's learned to be a good girl. But when Judith is fired for uncovering a...

Newswoman Farrell Slater discovers murder in her hunt for the original Fabergé Moon Egg, owned by the tsars and lost during the Russian Revolution. She undertakes her investigation after one sells for $6 million at a New York auction and turns out to be a fake.