Art is a highly valued commodity. Iconic paintings are often valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. Some of the most famous works of art are portraits like the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, or Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer. No matter the focus, a portrait captures a specific subject and that subject’s emotions—and serves as an interpretation of the artist at a specific moment in time.
Have you ever been to a museum and come across a portrait that has taken your breath away? When Ben Contini, the star of Joseph Hone’s latest spy thriller, Goodbye Again, first sets eyes on a portrait by Amedeo Modigliani of a beautiful naked woman reclining on a sofa, he is mesmerized. This enchantment follows him throughout his life and inspires him to become an artist. Ben’s mother, however, doesn’t see why he is so taken with the Modigliani, and she is scandalized by the nudity—or so Ben thinks. It is not until his mother dies that Ben truly understands why the piece made her so uncomfortable: She herself had a nude Modigliani piece hidden in her attic. And it made an astonishing journey to get there.
The discovery of his mother’s Modigliani pulls Ben into a dark world he never knew existed—the world of underground art dealing. But how did his mother, the widow of an Italian refugee, get her hands on a portrait of such striking beauty and undeniable worth? Through a whirlwind investigation, Ben uncovers an unsettling connection between the painting and Nazi Germany. But what else would you expect from Hone? After all, the New York Times and the Washington Post rank him among the best fifty spy thriller writers of all time.
Interestingly enough, in 2011, the same year that Goodbye Again was first published, a Modigliani painting that was stolen from Parisian-Jewish art dealer Oscar Stettiner by Nazis during World War II was discovered. Although it is not a nude, Modigliani’s Seated Man with a Cane (1918) is worth $25 million. The Nazis auctioned off the painting in 1944, and although all Nazi art sales were declared null and void following the war, Stettiner had no way of tracking down the piece. Helly Nahmad Gallery in New York recently made headlines when it announced its plan to sell Seated Man with a Cane at auction. The lawsuit between the billionaire Nahmad family and Stettiner’s grandson regarding the painting’s rightful owner is still under way.
So you finished Goodbye Againbut can’t get enough Joseph Hone? You’re in luck! Open Road Media has just released four novels in Hone’s Peter Marlow spy series, available where ebooks are sold.