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Author Larry Witham!
(Editor, Journalist & Artist)
The Art Crime Series:
Former Navy Intel Sleuth Julian Peale Turns Art Crime Investigator.
He Left The Battlefield For The Artworld And Found A Different Kind Of War.
Gallery Pieces by Larry Witham.
Julian Peale Art Crime Mystery, No. 1.
Former Navy intelligence man Julian Peale enters the art world for the love of painting but finds its underbelly of crime just as fascinating–and decidedly dangerous. In his forties, Julian Peale is getting a fresh start. Formerly in the Navy intelligence, he’s cast his lot in the New York art world. He’s landed a job with the venerable Medici Studios, which also contracts with the NYPD and FBI. On a winter morning, they’ve 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 Merriweather’s 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 he’d imagined.
Reviews:
…”A deftly crafted masterpiece of mystery and suspense from first page to last . . . Very highly recommended for community library collections [and] personal reading lists of all mystery buffs.” Midwest Book Review
…”A fast-paced mystery that’s bolstered by excellent characterizations, a deft back story, and insider knowledge . . . A thoughtful, well-written, and well-developed novel about the art world that’s an exuberant, satisfying read.” Kirkus Reviews
…”A thoroughly absorbing and masterfully crafted mystery about stolen art, family and greed. . .. a master class in pacing and style …. with prose that is both vivid and mesmerizing.” Best Thrillers Book Reviews
…”Vivid, atmospheric, and completely believable. . . . Intelligent and unpredictable.” Indie Book Reviews
5 Star Reviews From Reader:
https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B0794QLD2K/ref=acr_dp_hist_5?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=five_star&reviewerType=all_reviews
Product Details:
Paperback: 258 Pages
Publisher: Archway Publishing (November 13, 2015)
Language: English
Mysteries (Crime)
Mysteries (Suspense Thriller)
Thrillers (Suspense)
Thriller & Suspense (Action Fiction)
Thriller (Political)
The Silk Road Affair by Larry Witham.
Julian Peale Art Crime Mystery, No. 2.
More than thirty years after a famed Boston art collection is stolen, Washington learns that it has turned up in the People’s Republic of China—just as Sino-American relations are at a tipping point. To retrieve the artifacts, a covert mission is handed to retired military sleuths Julian Peale and Chinese American Grace Ho, both art specialists. From Washington to China’s great western desert, and from Boston’s lofty art museums to modernist Shanghai, the search is on. Beijing has meanwhile launched an audacious plan to recover lost Chinese art stolen by the West a century earlier. Not only do Peale and Ho have to iron out their own cultural differences and approaches to espionage, but the highest circle of the Beijing government is also caught in a web of intrigue between the top leader and two powerful women vying for control of China’s cultural policy. From the annals of art history to China’s world ambitions through “soft power,” The Silk Road Affair travels a historic legacy up to the present, from the Han Dynasty to the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square—and on to China Inc. Recovery of the stolen art, its return to the United States, and the political direction of the world’s largest country hang in the balance as Peale and Ho wind their way through the puzzle that is modern China.
5 Star Reviews From Readers:
https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/1665749067/ref=acr_dp_hist_5?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=five_star&reviewerType=all_reviews
Product Details:
Paperback: 322 Pages
Publisher: Archway Publishing (August 25, 2023)
Language: English
Mysteries (Crime)
Mysteries (Suspense Thriller)
Thrillers (Suspense)
Thriller & Suspense (Action Fiction)
Thriller (Political)
Amazon Print:
https://www.amazon.com/Silk-Road-Affair-Novel/dp/1665749067/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=
Incident At Devil’s Finger by Larry Witham.
Julian Peale Art Crime Mystery, No. 3.
On a beautiful June day, the famous performance artist Magnifica is set to jump from a helicopter and parachute down through the Red Rock Pinnacle monuments of Sedona, Arizona. What the large and excited crowd sees instead is the massive explosion and collapse of Devil’s Finger, a thousand-foot Red Rock pinnacle.
Art sleuth Julian Peale is on the case, looking where the authorities are not into the mysterious artworld ties to Magnifica. There’s a New York art patron, the Wall Street gambler, a cyberpunk hack, a Russian art dealer with mob ties, two rival tech millionaires, and a wealthy hippy still living in the Age of Aquarius. The artist Magnifica-Mary Saville by birth has retreated into the shadows with her copter pilot with plans to bolster her fame. She may be heir to a fortune gathered up by her ailing mother, the once-famous artist Sophia Saville.
In search for answers, Peale moves through the LA art scene, the tech world of San Francisco, the gamers conventions in Las Vegas, the underworld of art betting and Russian organized crime, and finally to the famed counter-cultural festival in the desert of Nevada, the Oracle of Fire-where Magnifica has audacious plans to crash the party. As the dust settles in a Chicago courtroom, all the motives in this art world menagerie are revealed-especially, who blew up Devil’s Finger?
5 Star Reviews From Readers:
https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B0CMFLQFH6/ref=acr_dpx_hist_5?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=five_star&reviewerType=all_reviews
Product Details:
Paperback: 338 Pages
Publisher: Archway Publishing (November 2, 2023)
Language: English
Mysteries (Crime)
Mysteries (Suspense Thriller)
Thrillers (Suspense)
Thriller & Suspense (Action Fiction)
Thriller (Political)
Amazon Print:
https://www.amazon.com/Incident-at-Devils-Finger-Novel/dp/B0CMFLQFH6/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=
The Haunted Artist by Larry Witham.
Julian Peale Art Crime Mystery, No. 4.
The death of Sam Mason, a young painter, shakes a small New England town. Police say suicide. But his sister can’t believe he would do such a thing. She enlists the help of Castelli and Associates, which specializes in art crime, and Julian Peale is on the case. With Sam gone, his paintings-seemingly lost, hidden, or even a mirage–now stir a race to find out what happened, if not to cash in on his legacy. Art dealers see Sam as a “late, great artist” in the making. They’re all after whatever of Sam’s mysterious works they can find. Delving into the artist’s past, Peale traces the threads of Sam’s life across middle America, from Pittsburgh and Savannah to St. Louis and Atlanta. As a struggling artist, it seems Sam had fallen into bad company, beginning with a shady art dealer and then a small-time duo of Albanian crooks. Sam had also been dabbling in the dark arts. Peale’s investigation takes him to art schools, urban scenes, the high-end art market, and a migrant community trying to do good-except for a few gone bad. The missing paintings remain a puzzle until the end, a time when bigger mysteries-and darker forces-unfold when least expected.
5 Star Reviews From Readers:
https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B0DYS2J6G8/ref=acr_dpx_hist_5?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=five_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar
Product Details:
Paperback: 218 Pages
Publisher: Archway Publishing (February 20, 2025)
Language: English
Mysteries (Crime)
Mysteries (Suspense Thriller)
Thrillers (Suspense)
Thriller & Suspense (Action Fiction)
Thriller (Political)
About The Author: Larry Witham is the author of nineteen books, an award-winning journalist and by avocation a fine art painter. He lives with his wife in the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C.
- Julian Peale Art Crime Mystery Series Book 4 Released 2025: “The Haunted Artist”.
- Julian Peale Art Crime Mystery Series Book 3 Released 2023: “Incident at Devil’s Finger”.
- Julian Peale Art Crime Mystery Series Book 2 Released 2023: “The Silk Road Affair”
- Julian Peale Art Crime Mystery Series Book 1 Released 2015: “Gallery Pieces”.
Larry Witham is an author, editor, journalist, and artist. His fourth novel, The Silk Road Affair was released (Sept. 2023) by Archway Publishing. Witham has written seventeen books, mainly nonfiction. He was a finalist in the 2015 Pen Literary Awards for biography. He began his writing career as a daily newspaper reporter in Washington D.C., a job he held for twenty-one years. He went on to write and edit books full-time. Witham has received several national awards for his newspaper work and books and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for a series he co-wrote on the clergy in America. He was Project Editor for the ten-volume Templeton Press science-and-religion series and was editor of Science and Spirit magazine in 2007. A painter by avocation, Witham, is currently exploring new art and writing projects. He has a bachelor’s degree in painting from San Jose State University (1974).
Amazon Author’s Page:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001IQZ8DO?ingress=0&visitId=a02dae73-782c-409a-98f2-d26bab4507df&ref_=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_2
Website:
https://www.larrywithamnovelist.com
Social Media Links:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100071874994187#
Author’s Page At Book Marketing Global Network:
https://bookmarketingglobalnetwork.com/book-marketing-global-network/author-larry-witham/