The Cohen family live in Austria at the time of its annexation by the Nazis. It-s a time of despair and terror. Wealthy and Jewish, they face both financial ruin and imprisonment if they don-t form a plan. In an underhanded move, they agree to hand over their extensive and much prized art collection in return for a free passage to neutral Switzerland. Underhanded because the paintings are actually fakes, painted by Anna Cohen-s talented boyfriend-
Some seventy-five years later, one of the original Gauguin-s Tahitian Princess, is discovered in an old lock up in Tuscany. This presents a real problem for the art dealer who had knowingly sold the fake to a Ukrainian businessman of ill repute; particularly as his painting was now very much on display at an Impressionist exhibition. What can he do about that?
Insurance investigator Roger Kirtley is present when the exhibited painting is stolen. His suspicions are raised when he notes another purported theft of the <
