The Raphael Affair

by IainPears (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $3.25

  The novel which began Iain Pears's acclaimed art crime series, introducing General Bottando and Flavia di Stefano of the Italian National Art Theft Squad. When English art historian, Jonathan Argyll, is caught breaking into a church in Rome, he has an astonishing story to tell. He claims that the church contains a genuine Raphael, hidden under a painting by Mantini. Further investigation reveals that the painting has disappeared...to reappear later in the hands of top English art dealer, Edward Byrnes. Soon Byrnes is able to unveil the Raphael before an amazed world. But how had he found out about the hidden masterpiece? And there is also the curious matter of the forger whose safety deposit box contains some highly suspicious sketches. Then a hideous act of vandalism is perpetrated. Murder is to follow...and General Bottando of Italy's Art Theft Squad faces the most critical challenge of his whole career.

• Used

  Paperback
  1991

  $4.95

• New

  Paperback
  2001

  $21.28

  Deliciously literate (Kirkus Reviews) and filled with articulate characters and erudite art commentary (The New York Times Book Review), this acclaimed series of novels by Iain Pears combines art and history, literature and mystery fiction, with the same passion for detail he displayed in his New York Times bestseller An Instance of the Fingerpost. In The Raphael Affair, the first book in the series, we are introduced to Jonathan Argyll, an enthusiastic young art scholar from England who has followed his suspicions about a long-lost Raphael painting to a small church in Rome. Not only is the painting in question gone from the site, it has been swiftly purchased, restored, auctioned, and installed in Rome's National Museum. But when the recovered Raphael is just as swiftly destroyed in a fire, Argyll begins to suspect its authenticity and the innocence of every person in its path.