In the dark under­bel­ly of the inter­na­tion­al art scene there is a par­tic­u­lar­ly sin­is­ter plot afoot. Greed, fraud and overblown egos are a usu­al part of the scene, but now upper class New York City denizens find them­selves the vic­tims of some unusu­al­ly adept art thieves who are throw­ing mur­der into the mix. 

Then, some­thing tru­ly aston­ish­ing occurs. A Van Gogh that, in 1944, was stolen from a Jew­ish fam­i­ly by a high rank­ing Nazi offi­cer has been inex­plic­a­bly shipped to the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art. NYPD Major Case Squad detec­tive Clay Ryder is asked to locate any right­ful heirs to the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar paint­ing. Doing so turns out to be remark­ably easy, but is also only the begin­ning of a very ugly chap­ter in the life of the unsus­pect­ing heir and the police offi­cer who is falling in love with her. Enter a group of Mossad oper­a­tives who believe the Nazi offi­cer, who stole the paint­ing and killed its own­er, is still alive and the plot thickens. 

The Lost Van Gogh is the ini­tial attempt at a work of fic­tion by the hus­band and wife team of Al and Jean Zer­ries. This was a great read! It’s a com­pli­cat­ed tale and they man­aged to keep the plot from unrav­el­ing and the excite­ment going until the end.