Death of an Old Master

A murder mystery featuring Lord Francis Powerscourt, England, 1899, and Titian has come to London. So have Giorgione, Bellini, Tintoretto and a galaxy of other great artists in a major exhibition of Venetian paintings. New World money and prices come to London too, as American millionaires bid for the Old Masters. Shortly after the exhibition opens, a leading art critic, Christopher Montague, is found garrotted in his study. Lord Francis Powerscourt, the discreet society investigator called upon to look into the case, soon discovers that before his death Montague has been working on a story that could have destroyed the exhibition and rocked the London art world to its foundations. According to Montague, most of the Venetian paintings were fakes and some of the alleged Old Masters were brilliant, and recent, forgeries. In pursuit of a master forger and a murderer, Powerscourt embarks on an odyssey through the treacherous world of art dealers and picture restorers.