Iain Pears: The Raphael Affair (UK 2014)

From the Publisher:
First in the Italian art-history crime series featuring English dealer and sleuth Jonathan Argyll, from the author of the best-selling masterpiece 'An Instance of the Fingerpost'.

Flavia di Stefano is the kind of Italian beauty that art dealer Jonathon Argyll doesn't normally get to meet in his line of work. But, it turns out, all he had to do was get caught breaking into one of Rome's churches - for Flavia is the Art Theft officer tasked with interviewing Jonathon. A strange way to meet, perhaps, but then Jonathon has an even stranger tale to tell.

His claim that the church contains a lost classic, hidden under another painting, is treated with cautious scepticism. But when the picture first vanishes, then turns up in the hands of a British art dealer claiming it's a newly discovered Raphael, it's clear there's more to it than meets the eye. When vandalism is followed by murder, it's up to Jonathan and Flavia to discover just how much more - a quest for the true nature of a painting with a lethal history...

Iain Pears: The Raphael Affair. A Jonathan Argyll Art Mystery. HarperCollins, ISBN: 9780007369348 (February, 2014), eBook, 0.36 MB (ca. 256 p.), £3.99.

Iain Pears: The Raphael Affair (UK 2010)

From the Publisher:
First in the Italian art-history crime series featuring English dealer and sleuth Jonathan Argyll, from the author of the best-selling masterpiece 'An Instance of the Fingerpost'.

Flavia di Stefano is the kind of Italian beauty that art dealer Jonathon Argyll doesn't normally get to meet in his line of work. But, it turns out, all he had to do was get caught breaking into one of Rome's churches - for Flavia is the Art Theft officer tasked with interviewing Jonathon. A strange way to meet, perhaps, but then Jonathon has an even stranger tale to tell.

His claim that the church contains a lost classic, hidden under another painting, is treated with cautious scepticism. But when the picture first vanishes, then turns up in the hands of a British art dealer claiming it's a newly discovered Raphael, it's clear there's more to it than meets the eye. When vandalism is followed by murder, it's up to Jonathan and Flavia to discover just how much more - a quest for the true nature of a painting with a lethal history...

Iain Pears: The Raphael Affair. A Jonathan Argyll Art Mystery. HarperCollins, ISBN: 9780007229178 (April, 2010), 256 p., £10.99.

Iain Pears: The Raphael Affair (USA 2001)

From the Publisher:
"Deliciously literate" (Kirkus Reviews) and filled with "articulate characters and erudite art commentary" (The New York Times Book Review), this acclaimed series of novels by Iain Pears combines art and history, literature and mystery fiction, with the same passion for detail he displayed in his New York Times bestseller An Instance of the Fingerpost. In The Raphael Affair, the first book in the series, we are introduced to Jonathan Argyll, an enthusiastic young art scholar from England who has followed his suspicions about a long-lost Raphael painting to a small church in Rome. Not only is the painting in question gone from the site, it has been swiftly purchased, restored, auctioned, and installed in Rome's National Museum. But when the recovered Raphael is just as swiftly destroyed in a fire, Argyll begins to suspect its authenticity... and the innocence of every person in its path.

Iain Pears: The Raphael Affair. Berkley Publishing, ISBN: 0425178927 (February, 2001), 257 p., $15.00.

Iain Pears: The Raphael Affair (UK 1999)

From the Publisher:
When English art historian Jonathan Argyll is caught breaking into a church in Rome, he has an astonishing story to tell. He claims that the church contains a genuine Raphael, hidden under a painting by Mantini. Further investigation reveals that the painting has disappeared...to reappear later in the hands of top English art dealer, Edward Byrnes.

Soon Byrnes is able to unveil the Raphael before an amazed world. But how had he found out about the hidden masterpiece? And there is also the curious matter of the forger whose safety deposit box contains some highly suspicious sketches.

Then a hideous act of vandalism is perpetrated. Murder is to follow... and General Bottando of Italy's Art Theft Squad faces the most critical challenge of his whole career.

Iain Pears: The Raphael Affair. HarperCollins, ISBN: 0006511120 (April, 1999), 240 p., £5.99.

Iain Pears: The Raphael Affair (USA 1998)

From the Publisher:
This is the first of a series of highly knowledgeable detective novels by an art historian about the art world. Set in Rome, it features the perpetually beset General Bottando of the Italian National Art Theft Squad; his glamorous assistant, Flavia di Stefano; and Jonathan Argyll, a British art historian. When Jonathan is arrested for breaking into an obscure church in Rome, he claims that it contains a long-lost Raphael hidden under a painting by Mantini. Further investigation reveals that the painting has disappeared. Then it miraculously reappears in the hands of the top British art dealer, Edward Byrnes. How has Byrnes found out about the hidden masterpiece, and whom is he acting for? There is also the curious matter of the safety-deposit box full of sketches closely resembling certain features of the newly discovered painting. A hideous act of vandalism occurs, then murder. Bottando faces the most critical challenge of his career, and Jonathan and Flavia find themselves in unexpected physical danger.

Iain Pears: The Raphael Affair. Berkley Publishing, ISBN: 0425166139 (October, 1998), 240 p., $6.50.