Hobby-Themed Mysteries: Art

Over My Dead Body by Jeffrey Archer

In London, the Metropolitan Police have set up a new Unsolved Murders Unit - a cold case squad - to catch the criminals nobody else can. Four victims. Four cases. All killers poised to strike again. In Geneva, millionaire art collector Miles Faulkner, convicted of forgery and theft, was pronounced dead two months ago. So why is his unscrupulous lawyer still representing a dead client? And who is the mysterious man his widow is planning to marry? On board the luxury cruise liner The Alden, a group of wealthy clientele have signed up the for opulence and glamour of a trans-Atlantic voyage. But the battle for power at the heart of a wealthy dynasty is about to turn to murder. And at the heart of all three investigations lies Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick, rising star of the Met. Only Warwick's genius for deductive reasoning, his fierce intelligence and his occasionally rash bravery - combined with that of ex-undercover operative Ross Hogan, reluctantly brought in from the cold - can bring the criminals to justice and put his nemesis behind bars. But can they catch the killers before it's too late?

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li

Ocean's Eleven meets The Farewell in this lush, lyrical heist novel inspired by the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums, about diaspora, the colonization of art, and the complexity of the Chinese American identity. History is told by the conquerors. Across the Western world, museums display the spoils of war, of conquest, of colonialism: priceless pieces of art looted from other countries, kept even now. Will Chen plans to steal them back. A senior at Harvard, Will fits comfortably in his carefully curated roles: a perfect student, an art history major and sometimes artist, the eldest son who has always been his parents' American Dream. But when a mysterious Chinese benefactor reaches out with an impossible--and illegal--job offer, Will finds himself something else as well: the leader of a heist to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing centuries ago. His crew is every heist archetype one can imag­ine--or at least, the closest he can get. A con artist: Irene Chen, a public policy major at Duke who can talk her way out of anything. A thief: Daniel Liang, a pre-med student with steady hands just as capable of lockpicking as suturing. A getaway driver: Lily Wu, an engineering major who races cars in her free time. A hacker: Alex Huang, an MIT dropout turned Silicon Valley software engineer. Each member of his crew has their own complicated relationship with China and the identity they've cultivated as Chinese Americans, but when Will asks, none of them can turn him down. Because if they succeed? They earn fifty million dollars--and a chance to make history. But if they fail, it will mean not just the loss of everything they've dreamed for themselves but yet another thwarted at­tempt to take back what colonialism has stolen.

The Art Forger by B. A. Shapiro

On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art worth today over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history, and Claire Roth, a struggling young artist, is about to discover that there’s more to this crime than meets the eye.

The Heist by Daniel Silva

Gabriel Allon, art restorer and occasional spy, searches for a stolen masterpiece by Caravaggio. Sometimes the best way to find a stolen masterpiece is to steal another one.

Murder in the Museum by Simon Brett

Bracketts, an Elizabethan house near town of Fethering, is about to be turned into a museum. Once the home of celebrated poet Esmond Cloudleigh, it has been decided that it should now become a shrine to his life and poetry. But the transition from house to museum is running far from smoothly, and Carole Seddon soon begins to regret her decision to be on the Board as the witnesses bitter antagonism and rivalry amongst the members. Then a shocking discovery is made: Buried in the kitchen garden is a human skeleton. And before too long, there is a second body, not yet cold.

The Museum of Desire by Jonathan Kellerman

Psychologist Alex Delaware and detective Milo Sturgis struggle to make sense of a seemingly inexplicable massacre in this electrifying psychological thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense. LAPD Lieutenant Milo Sturgis has solved a lot of murder cases. On many of them--the ones he calls "different"--he taps the brain of brilliant psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware. But neither Alex nor Milo are prepared for what they find on an early morning call to a deserted mansion in Bel Air. This one's beyond different. This is predation, premeditation, and cruelty on a whole new level. Four people have been slaughtered and left displayed bizarrely and horrifically in a stretch limousine. Confounding the investigation, none of the victims seems to have any connection to any other, and a variety of methods have been used to dispatch them. As Alex and Milo make their way through blind alleys and mazes baited with misdirection, they encounter a crime so vicious that it stretches the definitions of evil.

The Body in the Gallery by Katherine Hall Page

Secretly assisting her museum president friend in a case involving a stolen piece of fine art, Faith Fairchild stumbles upon a murder scene near a controversial exhibit and becomes increasingly exasperated by the police's inability to recognize important clues.

Portrait of a Lady by Diane A. S. Stuckart

After the deaths of two female servants, Leonardo da Vinci asks his apprentice, Dino, to go undercover disguised as a woman in the service of the Duke's ward. The task should prove easy since "Dino" is in reality Delfina, a young woman masquerading as a boy to serve as Leonardo's apprentice. But complications in the case soon have the young apprentice torn between her loyalty to Leonardo and her growing feelings for a captain of the Duke's guard.