Michael Gruber

"Tap-tapping the keys and out come the words on this little screen, and who will read them I hardly know. I could be dead by the time anyone actually gets to read them, as dead as, say, Tolstoy. Or Shakespeare. Does it matter, when you read, if the person who wrote still lives?" "These are the words of Jake Mishkin, whose seemingly innocent job as an intellectual property lawyer has put him at the center of a deadly conspiracy and a chase to find...

Marder's wife is dead. The news about her family in Mexico was the coup de grâce, and she left this life as deliberately as she lived it. He blames himself, as does his son, who hasn't spoken to him for too long. Marder lives alone, works alone, and feels alone. After yet another piece of shattering news, he makes a plan. But he doesn't count on his old friend Patrick Francis Skelly--who knows him better than any other living person--joining him....

Having inherited his father's considerable artistic talents but unable to find buyers for his works, Chaz Wimont accepts a commission to restore an antique fresco in a European castle, a job that brings unexpected success and a sinister offer.