The Madrid Connection

<p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Of all the paintings in all the galleries in all of Madrid.</strong></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>They chose a Caravaggio.</strong></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>And they chose last night.</strong></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>On the night </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Madrid</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> hosts the </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Champions League Final</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> disaster erupts at the </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Prado Museum</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>: a guard is murdered and a </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Caravaggio</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> is stolen.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>British art detective </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Benjamin Blake</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> hoping for a quiet few days in the city on a low-key assignment instead finds himself dragged into the chaos he swore to avoid. Suddenly he's the investigation's uninvited headache - and possibly its key. Rival mafias begin circling. The Asians want him gone. The Italians want him alive - at least for now. As the cultural bureaucrats drag him into the case to deflect from their own failings Madrid's homicide chief - choking on his own lies - wants him nowhere near the case let alone the truth.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Across the city freelance journalist </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Elena Carmona</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> is in Madrid on a separate assignment digging into the poison of racism in football - an evil that opens into a far wider conspiracy. Trafficking exploitation and revenge run beneath the pitch and deep into the criminal underworld drawing her straight towards the same mafias now circling the stolen Caravaggio. As her investigation crashes straight into Benjamin's they find themselves at the centre of something far darker than either imagined.</span></p><p></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Art money football murder mafia</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> - Madrid was never going to keep them apart.</span></p><p></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)><em>The Madrid Connection </em></strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>is a fast gripping and darkly funny page-turner - the brilliant sequel to </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)><em>The Barcelona Connection</em>.</strong></p>