The DeWitt Agency Files Series by Lance Charnes
The DeWitt Agency Files #1
The Collection
Lance Charnes
Four years ago, what Matt Friedrich learned at work put him in prison. Yesterday, it earned him a job. Tomorrow, it may kill him. Matt learned all the angles at his old Los Angeles gallery: how to sell stolen art, how to "enhance" a painting's history, how to help buyers hide their purchases from their spouses or the IRS. He made a load of money doing it – money he poured into the lawyer who worked a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney. Matt's out on parole and hopelessly in debt with no way out... until a shadowy woman from his past recruits him to find a cache of stolen art that could be worth millions. Now Matt's in Milan, impersonating a rich collector looking for deals. He has twenty days to track down something that may not exist for a boss who knows a lot more than she's telling. He's saddled with a tough-talking partner who may be out to screw him and up against a shady gallerist whom Matt tried to send to prison. His parole officer doesn't know he's left the U.S....
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The DeWitt Agency Files #2
Stealing Ghosts
Lance Charnes
Dorotea DeVillardi is ninety-one years old, gorgeous, and worth a fortune. Matt Friedrich's going to steal her. The Nazis seized Dorotea's portrait from her Viennese family, then the Soviets stole it from the Nazis. Now it's in the hands of a Russian oligarch. Dorotea's corporate-CEO grandson played by the legal rules to get her portrait back, but he struck out. So he's hired the DeWitt Agency to get it for him – and he doesn't care how they do it. Now Matt and Carson, his ex-cop partner, have to steal Dorotea's portrait from a museum so nobody knows it's gone, and somehow launder its history so the client doesn't have to hide it forever. The client's saddled them with a babysitter: Dorotea's granddaughter Julie, who may have designs on Matt as well as the painting. As if this wasn't hard enough, it looks like someone else is gunning for the same museum – and he may know more about Matt and Carson's plans than he should. Matt went to prison for the bad things he did...
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The DeWitt Agency Files #3
Chasing Clay
Lance Charnes
It’s pure white, deep blue… and dirty all over. Nam Ton ware – centuries-old ceramics from Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle – captivated the DeWitt Agency’s tech-tycoon client. Now Immigration and Customs Enforcement is on his case for buying smuggled antiquities. To get immunity, he’s hired the agency to run an off-books investigation into Nam Ton’s source. Disgraced ex-L.A. gallerist and ex-con Matt Friedrich is in charge. If he finishes within sixty days, he’ll earn an early end to his probation. If he doesn’t, he may go back to prison for bending the federal criminal code into a pretzel. Soon enough, Matt’s in San Francisco, getting tight with Savannah, the client’s beautiful art advisor, to scam his way into the smuggling operation. As the burglary, blackmail, tax evasion and customs fraud piles up and Matt finds himself sandwiched in a federal turf war, he realizes he’s in way over his head with no good way out. And that’s before he ends up in a real live jungle. Matt’s...
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