Gallery Pieces

<p>In his forties Julian Peale is getting a fresh start. Formerly in Navy intelligence he's cast his lot in the New York art world. He's landed a job with the venerable Medici Studios which also contracts with the NYPD and FBI. On a winter morning they've run a sting operation to track Russian art smugglers. The caper goes awry but an odd bit of evidence remains: four art catalogs with graffiti markings.</p><p>So begins <i>Gallery Pieces</i> a story that will keep readers guessing until the end. Peale follows the clues where they lead. He meets a heavy at the Miami Art Fair chases a mystery bidder at Merriweather's auction in Manhattan and crosses paths with a Brooklyn performance artist whose pranks are dangerously entangled in the Russian intrigues. Step by step Peale enters an art world permeated not only by the avant-garde but by the Russian mob hackers forgers hipsters and the history of art looting in Europe during WWII.</p><p>When Peale least expects it the catalogs lead him on another trail. He is drawn into a long-forgotten mystery surrounding his grandfather Maxwell Peale who had been a monuments man a soldier who helped reclaim art looted by the Nazis. Peale is on his way to discovering paintings stolen in postwar Europe. Finding the culprits however brings him closer to home than he'd imagined.</p>