Passage to Remorse

PASSAGE TO REMORSE (MALONE SERIES, #10)

Art can be beautiful, thought-provoking, and extremely valuable. In a city with as much art as Los Angeles, thefts aren’t uncommon. When tough as old boots, street smart Los Angeles PI Malone digs into the sketchy black market art scene to investigate an infamous unsolved crime, danger explodes in dangerous proportions.

The art heist, one of L.A.’s most legendary, is still talked about in local art circles seven years after two masterpieces worth $20 million disappeared from the Brentwood home of a wealthy ophthalmologist with a thriving Beverly Hills eye care medical practice. Most experts believe the art is lost forever, buried deep, sold off to unscrupulous private collectors, or, worse, destroyed as incriminating evidence. But when someone sends a digital image of the most valuable painting from the heist to the insurance underwriter that paid off on the theft claim, the company finds renewed hope of recovering the artworks and enlists Malone’s help.

Soon the art case thrusts Malone into the seedy underworld of black market art dealers, organized crime, and old disputes. A five-thousand dollar retainer and the promise of a $1.2 million recovery fee offered by the insurance company sets Malone on a trail into the world of art fraud, inside jobs, and brazen heists.

Set against the backdrop of the Beverly Hills high-society art scene and the low-life byways of L.A., this is classic Malone doing what he does best.