Jonathan Gash
The Gondola Scam
Collins Crime Club 1984
UK First Edition Book
We interested in buying early Lovejoy UK firsts in fine condition
We are paying the VERY HIGHEST prices for choice items
If you have anything you may consider selling
books wanted
|
|
Nicking antiques lifts the lowest spirits. That, at least, is the view of Lovejoy, Jonathan Gash's 'lecherous, crooked, filthy but lovable antique dealer' (Marghanita Laski, Listener), who is also a diwie-a diviner. As such, his instincts tell him that a painting auctioned for a high figure is an obviousfake. So why should certain dealers bid themselves almost into poverty for it? And why, later, should antique thieves pull a raid at the expense of friends of Lovejoy's for that same fake? Before he can find out, Lovejoy, who thought nothing (well, very little) of nicking an antique from the Vatican in Tho Vatican Rip, receives an astonishing infer: vylil he check the authenticity of the antique being surreptitiously lifted from Ver.ice (for love, not lucre) by an eccentric, to make sure they are the real thing and not the skilf'jlfdkes which should replace them? !i is gn offer Lovejoy is in no position to refuse, and IT effects an introduction between 'one of the happiest creations of recent crime fiction/ according to Anthony Price in the Oxford Mail, and Venice, 'the greatest man-made structure the world has ever known/ according to the preservation-conscious millionaire who is behind the grand scam. It also introduces Lovejoy to as ugly a bunch of crooks as any he has ever encountered as he battles on La Serenissima's behalf among her squares, her alleyways, her canals and the islands of the lagoon itself. |