Download or read book The Caravaggio Conspiracy written by Alex Connor and published by Quercus. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the bodies of twin brothers, both successful art dealers, are found stripped naked, necks bound with wire and legs obscenely contorted, their brutal murders are linked to the mysterious disappearance of two paintings by the master Caravaggio. Investigators are confounded and it falls to art expert Gil Eckhart to find the killer before he slays again. As the search for clues takes him from the glamorous skyline of New York to the fetid catacombs of Palermo, Sicily, Eckhart traces the horrific truth behind Caravaggioâ??s dark and bloody secrets, bringing them to life in the present, and finds that in the high-stakes world of art, good and evil are often tarred with the same, blood-soaked, brush.
Download or read book The Caravaggio Conspiracy written by Walter Ellis and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Declan O'Malley, the first Irish-born Superior General of the Society of Jesus, learns that his friend, the German Cardinal Horst Ruttgers, has died in mysterious circumstances. With his nephew Liam Dempsey, recovering from wounds received while serving as a soldier with the United Nations, he tries to uncover the truth.
Download or read book The Caravaggio Conspiracy written by Peter Watson and published by Doubleday Books. This book was released on 1984 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A true story of deception, theft and smuggling in the art world by the man known as "John Blake"--Cover. How five art dealers, four policemen, three picture restorers, two auction houses, and a journalist plotted to recover some of the world's most beautiful stolen paintings.
Download or read book The Wolves of Venice written by Alex Connor and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The city has secrets kept in the shadows. Venice, 16th century. The staggering wealth of Venice contrasts the brutal lives of those in the ghetto. Opportunistic merchants arrive to make their fortune. Deception, malice and perversion thrive, leading to the emergence of a dark society: The Wolves of Venice. Drawn into the Wolves' plots are the innocents – including Marco Gianetti, assistant to Tintoretto; Ira Tabat, a Jewish merchant; Giorgio Gabal, an artist's apprentice; and Giovanni Spoletto, the doomed castrato – all manipulated by the likes of Pietro Aretino, the courtesan Tita Boldini and the spy Adamo Baptista. The lives of these characters criss-cross one another. Their destinies intermingle in a Venice corrupted by spies lingering in the shadows, working for paymasters that change allegiance with the wind. As the betrayals, murders and tragedies continue, will anyone be able to bring the Wolves of Venice to justice? Praise for Alex Connor: 'Alex Connor is a master at keeping the pace moving [and] keeps you turning the pages even though you promised yourself to put the light out fifteen minutes ago!' HISTORICAL NOVEL REVIEW. 'A deep knowledge of the art world is displayed by Connor... The pace is steady with spikes of frantic action... A marvellous twist at the end' CRIMESQUAD. 'A truly superb book... The end is totally unexpected. Highly recommended' EURO CRIME. 'The book sped by and entertained me immensely. I will be without doubt picking up the other books by this author, finding a good thriller writer is hard, finding a great one is nigh on impossible' PARMENION BOOKS. 'Convincing characters and a fast-moving plot lift this above the pack of mystery thrillers centered on an old work of art' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.
Download or read book The Medici Conspiracy written by Peter Watson and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2007-06-12 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story begins, as stories do in all good thrillers, with a botched robbery and a police chase. Eight Apuleian vases of the fourth century B.C. are discovered in the swimming pool of a German-based art smuggler. More valuable than the recovery of the vases, however, is the discovery of the smuggler's card index detailing his deals and dealers. It reveals the existence of a web of tombaroli -- tomb raiders -- who steal classical artifacts, and a network of dealers and smugglers who spirit them out of Italy and into the hands of wealthy collectors and museums. Peter Watson, a former investigative journalist for the London Sunday Times and author of two previous expos's of art world scandals, names the key figures in this network that has depleted Europe's classical artifacts. Among the loot are the irreplaceable and highly collectable vases of Euphronius, the equivalent in their field of the sculpture of Bernini or the painting of Michelangelo. The narrative leads to the doors of some major institutions: Sothebys, the Getty Museum in L.A., the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York among them. Filled with great characters and human drama, The Medici Conspiracy authoritatively exposes another shameful round in one of the oldest games in the world: theft, smuggling and duplicitous dealing, all in the name of art.
Download or read book Caravaggio A Life Sacred and Profane written by Andrew Graham-Dixon and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-11-10 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year "This book resees its subject with rare clarity and power as a painter for the 21st century." —Hilary Spurling, New York Times Book Review Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) lived the darkest and most dangerous life of any of the great painters. This commanding biography explores Caravaggio’s staggering artistic achievements, his volatile personal trajectory, and his tragic and mysterious death at age thirty-eight. Featuring more than eighty full-color reproductions of the artist’s best paintings, Caravaggio is a masterful profile of the mercurial painter.
Download or read book The Art Thief written by Noah Charney and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-09-02 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charney crafts an intellectual masterpiece--the mystery of three missing masterpieces that sends criminals and curators alike on a rollicking chase through the art galleries and auction houses of Europe.
Download or read book Sotheby s written by Peter Watson and published by Random House (NY). This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: alist Peter Watson exposes smuggling and the evasion of customs and national laws--and questions certain practices within and around the venerable art auction house. Using leads provided by the tip, and a huge cache of stolen documents, Watson details genuine experts, tomb robbers, as well as false names and claims, evaluations, despoilation of national treasures, and more. photos.
Download or read book Landscape of Lies written by Peter Watson and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mysterious painting holds the clues to a cache of priceless relics in this treasure hunt of “deepening suspense” à la The Da Vinci Code (Library Journal). In financial trouble, Isobel Sadler considers selling a painting that’s been in her family for generations. She can’t imagine it’s worth much . . . until someone tries to steal it. Mystified, Isobel turns to art dealer Michael Whiting for advice. He identifies the painting as a sixteenth-century treasure map pointing the way to a series of lost religious artifacts hidden by monks when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries. If he and Isobel can decipher the clues in the painting, Michael reasons, her money troubles will disappear. But if they can’t decode the painting quickly, Michael and Isobel could be history themselves. As they struggle to translate the arcane instructions—laced with references to everything from the Bible to Botticelli—they are stalked by a rival who will stop at nothing to get his hands on the treasure. Peter Watson’s stylish art-world thriller seamlessly mixes action with “sustained literariness, refinement, and polish” (Library Journal).
Download or read book From Manet to Manhattan written by Peter Watson and published by Random House (NY). This book was released on 1992 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A behind-the-scenes look at a century of high art and high-stakes commerce, fluently narrated and spiced with backstage gossip. This captivating history brings to life the connoisseurs and market makers, artists and swindlers who have shaped our tastes and driven the price of masterpieces into the stratosphere. Photographs, caricatures, and pictures of famous paintings.
Download or read book Fallout written by Peter Watson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-09-20 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between December 1943 and August 1944, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill ignited the Cold War, a superpower rivalry that would dominate the world over half a century, by building an atomic bomb and excluding their Russian allies. Peter Watson tells the pulse-pounding story of how two atomic physicists tried to counter this in two very different ways. While Niels Bohr sought to convince President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill to share their nuclear knowledge with Joseph Stalin, nuclear scientist Klaus Fuchs, a German Communist emigre to Britain, was leaking atomic secrets to the Soviets in a rival attempt to ensure parity between the superpowers. Neither succeeded in preventing the World War II allies from unleashing the atom bomb on the world. Fallout proves that the atomic bomb was not needed, and was made as a result of a series of flawed decisions. The Americans did not tell the UK that the atomic research was compromised by Soviet spies; the British did not tell the Americans that in 1943 they knew for sure that Germany did not have a nuclear bomb program. Neither country admitted to the scientists developing the bomb that it would never be used to counter the (non-existent) German nuclear threat. Had the scientists known, many of them would have refused to complete work on the bomb. This story shows how politicians fatally failed to understand the nature of atomic science and, in so doing, exposed the world needlessly to great danger, a danger that is still very much with us.
Download or read book War On The Mind written by Peter Watson and published by Westview Press. This book was released on 1978 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Saving Caravaggio written by Neil Griffiths and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2007-07-05 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under a searing Calabrian sky, detective Daniel Wright is shown the world’s most famous stolen painting – Caravaggio’s Nativity. As a Caravaggio lover and expert in art recovery, he is determined to rescue it from the mafia bosses who use it as payment for drug deals and assassinations. Risking his marriage, his career and his life, Daniel defies his superiors and goes beyond the law with the help of Uffizi Gallery curator Francesca Natali in a desperate bid to save the Caravaggio before it is lost forever. But will he become the hero of the art establishment, or has he dangerously underestimated its mafia underworld? Saving Caravaggio is a thrilling story of intrigue and personal crusades, that combines the dark atmosphere of Naples with a determined pursuit of passion.
Download or read book The German Genius written by Peter Watson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-09-16 with total page 918 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the end of the Baroque age and the death of Bach in 1750 to the rise of Hitler in 1933, Germany was transformed from a poor relation among western nations into a dominant intellectual and cultural force more influential than France, Britain, Italy, Holland, and the United States. In the early decades of the 20th century, German artists, writers, philosophers, scientists, and engineers were leading their freshly-unified country to new and undreamed of heights, and by 1933, they had won more Nobel prizes than anyone else and more than the British and Americans combined. But this genius was cut down in its prime with the rise and subsequent fall of Adolf Hitler and his fascist Third Reich-a legacy of evil that has overshadowed the nation's contributions ever since. Yet how did the Germans achieve their pre-eminence beginning in the mid-18th century? In this fascinating cultural history, Peter Watson goes back through time to explore the origins of the German genius, how it flourished and shaped our lives, and, most importantly, to reveal how it continues to shape our world. As he convincingly demonstarates, while we may hold other European cultures in higher esteem, it was German thinking-from Bach to Nietzsche to Freud-that actually shaped modern America and Britain in ways that resonate today.
Download or read book Caravaggio written by Helen Langdon and published by Westview Press. This book was released on 2000-07-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all the great Italian painters, the seventeenth-century master Caravaggio speaks most clearly and powerfully to our time. In this vivid and beautifully written biography, Helen Langdon tells the story of the great painter's life and times in a way that leaves the reader with a renewed appreciation of his art.
Download or read book Capo written by Peter Watson and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young Sicilian immigrant rises through the ranks of the Mafia in this “mesmerizing” novel that “gives Puzo a run for his money” (Publishers Weekly). Sicily, 1879: After successfully smuggling a severed human ear past the police, Silvio Randazzo completes his dangerous first rite of passage—from peasant boy to Mafia soldier. The ear is a chilling ransom demand from Antonino Greco, Italy’s most famous and feared Mafioso. But it’s not until Randazzo commits his first vendetta killing that he truly “makes his bones” as a worthy member of the society that values honor above all . . . and rewards betrayal with death. New Orleans, 1880: By exterminating the rivals of Angelo Priola—the most powerful gangster in America’s most decadent city—the newly arrived Randazzo makes his mark in the fledgling underworld of his new homeland. As the law closes in on the notorious Greco, and dangerous new players vie for Priola’s territory, the cunning, ruthless, and ever more ambitious Randazzo watches the path clear for his own ascension to the throne of capo—boss of bosses. In the tradition of The Godfather, this “absorbing, historically authentic tale,” inspired by real events, brings to vivid life the bloody and brutal world of the Mafia (The Observer).
Download or read book Murder at the National Gallery written by Margaret Truman and published by Fawcett. This book was released on 2014-09-17 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Powerful . . . Fascinating . . . Truman absolutely amazes.”—Atlanta Journal & Constitution When the senior curator at Washington's famed National Gallery finds a missing painting by the Renaissance master Caravaggio, he mounts a world-class exhibition—and plots a brilliant forgery scheme that will stun the art world. “A thrilling chase.”—Publishers Weekly But an artful deception suddenly becomes a portrait of blackmail and murder—as gallery owner and part-time sleuth Annabel Reed-Smith and her husband go searching for clues in the heady arena of international art and uncover a rare collection of unscrupulous characters that leads all the way to Italy. “Highly recommended . . . One of [Margaret] Truman's best.”—Booklist
