Take one juicy slice of the art gallery scene. Pour in a bottle of world-class Pinot. Add an exotic dark-haired seductress. Season with a soupcon of treachery and murder. Stir well. Who says a watched plot never boils.
It’s a tasty dish that’s got Professor Jonathan Benjamin Franklin in hot water again. Whether it’s art, women or the occasional stray body, as usual, he’s flummoxed.
But don’t tell him. It was the dog that did it.
Second in the Jonathan Benjamin Franklin mystery series. Franklin, the brilliant Harvard Law professor is on another case in the art world. He must save his old friend Simon Aaron’s great auction house, Witten’s, from the hands of an insidious corporate raider. It all turns on a Nazi looting, art forgery, and corporate intrigue.
Jimmy Harris may not be the swiftest lawyer on the Central Coast. He would tell you so himself. Though, he might be the funniest. And maybe Janet Mason is not the ideal client. But she’s a star. Desperate Shop Girls was the hottest show on television for the past five years. Now the hottest show is in the quaint seaside town of San Buenasara since she retained Jimmy to sue Guy Mason, the big developer, for divorce. I mean what with the mob and everything. Janet’s staying up at Franklin Farms, a Guy Mason development. It’s a killer project that Janet wants Jimmy to derail. Who knows why? Our boy’s in way over his head. And developments could sink him. If he doesn’t get shot first. Jeez.
The Nauton Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is running out of money. It is beset by forgery and awash in rebellious artists. It is being torn apart by a band of hostile curators with a director who’s trying to turn things around if he could figure out which way to turn. Then there’s the murder. Harvard Law Professor Jonathan Benjamin Franklin is at it again. He’s been dealt a pretty good hand, but someone has raised the stakes when he wasn’t looking. He can’t fold; he will go to jail. And be disbarred. Assuming he lives that long. This art world is downright dangerous. Elegant society, fine art and ruthless business dealings create another art world mystery for Jonathan and his sidekick, Rufus, to sniff out.
David Gersh 