Art History Mystery

This is Irving Stone's powerful and passionate biographical novel of Michelangelo. His time: the turbulent Renaissance, the years of poisoning princes, warring popes, the all-powerful Medici family, the fanatic monk Savonarola. His loves: the frail and lovely daughter of Lorenzo de Medici; the...

Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of--a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past...

This eBook explores the fascinating world of secret codes and the art of deciphering, a field that blends history, mathematics, language, and human ingenuity. From the earliest known codes to the sophisticated encryption systems of modern times, it traces the evolution of secrecy and the methods developed to protect and uncover hidden messages. Readers learn about the characteristics of codes, how they work, and the processes used to encode and decode information, with attention to some of the toughest ciphers ever created—like the Enigma machine, the Navajo code talkers’ oral codes, ...

When Daisy Fitzpatrick discovers a treasure trove of gold in a sea cave near her Granny’s shanty on Dingle Bay, she rents out her art studio in Dingle, buys an old mansion in Killarney, and overnight, finds herself a local celebrity with a wonderful new life. But when the real owner lays claim to the gold, she loses everything, including her fickle, new friends. Can Daisy find it in herself to start over? With Cavan’s help, the sea captain’s ghost, and her granny’s quilt to point the way, the quest for more gold is soon underway. But when a priest ends up dead and a pirate takes up ...

When Jonathan Argyll is arrested for breaking into an obscure church in Rome, he claims that it contains a long-lost Raphael hidden under a painting by Mantini. The painting disappears - then reappears in the hands of the top British art dealer, Edward Byrnes. How has Byrnes found out about the hidden masterpiece, and whom is he acting for? There is also the curious matter of the safe deposit box full of sketches closely resembling features of the newly discovered painting.

The national bestselling hit hailed by the New York Times as a "vibrant medieval mystery...[it] outdoes the competition." In medieval Cambridge, England, Adelia, a female forensics expert, is summoned by King Henry II to investigate a series of gruesome murders that has wrongly implicated the...

Narrated by Jennifer Jason Leigh Quentin Tarantino’s long-awaited first work of fiction — at once hilarious, delicious, and brutal — is the always surprising, sometimes shocking new novel based on his Academy Award- winning film. RICK DALTON – Once he had his own TV series, but now...

After the long period of cultural decline known as the Dark Ages, Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science and began to develop a vision of Western society that remains at the heart of Western civilization today. By placing the image of the Virgin...

The follow-up to Mistress of the Art of Death- in the national bestselling series hailed as "the medieval answer to Kay Scarpetta and the CSI detectives." When King Henry II's mistress is found poisoned, suspicion falls on his estranged queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. The king orders Adelia Aguilar...

The Hell Screen is the sequel to I. J. Parker's Rashomon Gate. The Hells Gate has received stellar reviews from many well-respected publications including Publishers Weekly: "Parker's remarkable command of 11th-century Japanese history-from the rituals of the royal court to the minutia of daily...

A New York Times bestseller. In a Paris cafe, American surgeon Paul Osborn looks across the room and spots the man who murdered his father 30 years before. In London, a grizzled L.A. homicide cop named McVey joins Scotland Yard to unravel the mystery of a severed head and seven headless...

Journey to the plains of Central Australia in The Pearl Sister, the fourth book in the number one bestselling Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley. A spellbinding story of love and loss, inspired by the mythology of the famous star constellation. CeCe D’Aplièse has never felt she fitted in...

The Louvre is more than the world’s largest art museum. It is a fortress, a palace, a treasure house of revolutions, and a stage for mysteries that continue to fascinate millions. To step inside its echoing halls is to journey through nearly a thousand years of history—where monarchs once schemed, artists found inspiration, and the world’s most famous masterpieces found their home. In Masterpieces and Mysteries, architectural historian Caspar Dene takes you far beyond the crowds gathered at the Mona Lisa.

“Wonderful reading.” —Scott Turow, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Presumed Innocent An extraordinarily accomplished debut novel—a love story, mystery, and philosophical puzzle, told in the singular voices of the residents of a Beaux Arts apartment house in Belgium during World...

In an exchange of favors with an art dealer colleague, Jonathan Argyll unluckily offers to transport a painting from Paris back to Rome. It seems routine work, and Jonathan gets to meet his girlfriend, Flavia, who works for Rome's Art Theft Squad. But when a would-be thief tries to take the painting at the train station, and the art dealer seems less interested in his purchase once he sees it, Jonathan wonders why, as events unfold, someone is willing to kill for it.

Ancient secrets. Hidden danger. A lost masterpiece. Darwin Lacroix seeks a tranquil year in Paris guest lecturing at the esteemed École du Louvre, but fate has other plans. Beneath the museum's grandeur lie secrets of a murky past. A clandestine group formed in the Age of Enlightenment secretly controls the collections. During the wars, its unscrupulous curators conspired to squirrel away booty, cutting out the rightful owners. Billions in art: bought and sold for private gain. When French authorities pressure Darwin to expose the group’s dark agenda, he pushes back. But he soon ...

From London to Corsica to Paris—two captivating love stories unfurl in this captivating novel from a New York Times bestselling author as a young woman pursues the truth about her late mother. Kate Darling's enigmatic mother—a once-famous ballerina—has passed away, leaving Kate bereft...

In The Art of the English Murder, Lucy Worsley explores this phenomenon in forensic detail, revisiting notorious crimes like the Ratcliff Highway Murders, which caused a nationwide panic in the early 19th century, and the case of Frederick and Maria Manning, the suburban couple who were hanged after killing Maria's lover and burying him under their kitchen floor. Our fascination with crimes like these became a form of national entertainment, inspiring novels and plays, prose and paintings, poetry and true-crime journalism.

A mysterious forger. A plot to empty the world’s museums. Can this champion of culture stop it before all our history is fake? A forensic audit at the Vatican Museum reveals looting on a grand scale. A corrupt antiquities dealer has been plundering Europe's institutions—replacing priceless originals with copies. Darwin Lacroix, the Pope’s new Director of Special Archaeological Investigations, is repulsed by self-serving curators, profit-hungry auction houses, and secretive government Freeports. But he cannot stem the loss of artistic heritage. Until a sale goes wrong. When a ...

The Black Arts of Atlantis by Steven Detmers is an paranormal and occult fiction book set in 19th Century San Francisco. Follow the harrowing journey of Doron Avital and his companions as they delve into the dark secrets of a lost civilization. What would you do to escape starvation? For Doron Avital, the answer is to embrace the unknown and practice the dark arts of Atlantis. Forced into a second-hand bookshop by a rainstorm, Doron stumbles upon an ancient tome that promises unimaginable power and wealth through occult rituals. Desperation breeds daring: As Doron and his friends, Matt ...