Working as a buyer for the Reynard Art Fund, an art investment company, Maddy Blume is set to bid on a painting of a headless nude woman by surrealist painter Marcel Duchamp at Sotheby's auction house in New York. But bids on the painting quickly skyrocket and she loses out to an unkempt man representing a Russian oligarch. Maddy's boss is intent on finding out who has the painting and what he plans to do with it, and Maddy is assigned the task.

Meanwhile, Englishman Alan Powell of the Serious Organized Crime Agency, is investigating the identity of a headless corpse found beneath the boardwalk in Brighton Beach. He's sure it has ties to New York's Russian mafia and the Duchamp painting, but first he must identify the dead woman.

Then a third element is added to the mix in the form of a Russian thief and assassin calling himself the Scythian, who's been hired to retrieve the painting from the buyer -- no matter what it takes to do so. His tactics and the outcome are almost beyond comprehension.

As a series of mysterious killings takes place, it becomes apparent there are a number of disparate elements at work here involving a conspiracy that seems almost impossible to unravel.

This edgy and complex arcane thriller is guaranteed to keep you captivated until the volatile ending.

Book Summary

A controversial masterpiece resurfaces in Budapest. A ballerina's headless corpse is found beneath the boardwalk at Brighton Beach. And New York's Russian mafia is about to collide with the equally ruthless art world....

Maddy Blume, an ambitious young art buyer for a Manhattan hedge fund, is desperate to track down a priceless painting by Marcel Duchamp, the most influential artist of the twentieth century.

The discovery of a woman's decapitated body thrusts criminal investigator Alan Powell into a search for the same painting, with its enigmatic image of a headless nude.

And a Russian thief and assassin known as the Scythian must steal the painting to save his reputation--and his life.

The murderous race is on. And in the lead is an insidious secret society intent on reclaiming the painting for reasons of its own--and by any means necessary....