Masterclass - Morris West

When Max Mather flies into town, he knows the art world is his to command... For Max is a gamesman in the market place where old canvas carries a price tag as long as a telephone number.

While New York's murder squad hunts the killer of Madeleine Bayard, a promiscuous bisexual painter, the gnomes of Zurich and piranhas of Manhattan chase elusive Raphael masterpieces... but, for both, Max is holding the last wild card.

For he knows who killed Madeleine, and he also happens to have more than a hundred million dollars' worth of authentic Raphaels lying in a bank vault in his name - the last bequest of his mistress, an aristocratic Italian millionairess who died in his arms...