Witty Italian art-history crime series featuring English dealer Jonathan Argyll, from the author of the best-selling literary masterpiece, 'An Instance of the Fingerpost'.

Paris can do strange things to a man's mind... like making him agree to an apparently harmless favour of escorting a picture to Rome.

'The Death of Socrates' is a particularly nondescript piece, so art dealer Jonathan Argyll can sympathize when its recipient refuses to accept delivery. But in an unusual twist, the same man is found dead a few hours later. Surely the painting wasn't that bad?

Now caught up in a murder investigation, Jonathan recalls an attempt to steal the artwork while he was at the train station. Could this be the killer? The bodies start piling up and Jonathan must uncover the dark wartime secret at the heart of the mystery - before someone puts him out of the picture for good.