Art Auction Mystery

Persuading children that art is as interesting as comic books and computer games is not easy, unless of course you have Art Auction Mystery to offer them. Combining a comic book mystery story with a fresh, vibrant art style, this book is such good fun that kids will never notice they are learning!

The Hollands were vacationing in an old house which had once belonged to an artist whose paintings had lately become valuable. A menacing art dealer would stop at nothing to get hold of these paintings. The Hollands solve a mystery and outwit the art dealer.

In his forties, Julian Peale is getting a fresh start. Formerly in Navy intelligence, hes cast his lot in the New York art world. Hes landed a job with the venerable Medici Studios, which also contracts with the NYPD and FBI. On a winter morning, theyve run a sting operation to track Russian art smugglers. The caper goes awry, but an odd bit of evidence remains: four art catalogs with graffiti markings. So begins Gallery Pieces, a story that will keep readers guessing until the end. Peale follows the clues where they lead. He meets a heavy at the Miami Art Fair, chases a mystery bidder at Merriweathers auction in Manhattan, and crosses paths with a Brooklyn performance artist whose pranks are dangerously entangled in the Russian intrigues. Step by step, Peale enters an art world permeated not only by the avant-garde, but by the Russian mob, hackers, forgers, hipsters, and the history of art looting in Europe during WWII. When Peale least expects it, the catalogs lead him on another trail. He is drawn into a long-forgotten mystery surrounding his grandfather, Maxwell Peale, who had been a monuments man, a soldier who helped reclaim art looted by the Nazis. Peale is on his way to discovering paintings stolen in postwar Europe. Finding the culprits, however, brings him closer to home than hed imagined.

The glamour and mystery of the art auction, gathering interested buyers from across the globe, makes it one of the most fascinating marketplaces in existence. ‘Sleepers’, artworks or antiques that have been undervalued and mislabelled due to an expert’s oversight and consequently undersold, appear regularly. This fascinating new book provides the first extensive study of the phenomenon of sleepers through an in-depth analysis of the contractual relationships, liability and remedies that arise in the context of auction sales.

When Saba Khan’s apartment burns in a mysterious fire, her high school rallies around her. But when a piece of art donated to a fund-raiser is revealed to be worth a fortune, Saba’s life turns upside down again. Greed, jealousy, and suspicion create a tangled web as everyone debates who should get the money, and makes accusations.

When Nancy learns that the Drews’ housekeeper has been duped by an elegantly dressed woman into buying a stolen fur piece, the young detective starts a search for the clever swindler. To Nancy’s astonishment, she discovers that the woman is using the name Nancy Drew. The dishonest acts of the impostor point the finger of suspicion at Nancy herself and result in her being questioned by the police. Join Nancy in this thrilling mystery as she solves the mystery and clears her name.