BRUTAL ART

Ethan Muller is struggling to establish his reputation as a dealer in thecut-throat world of contemporary art when he is alerted to aonce-in-a-lifetime opportunity: in a decaying New York slum, an elderlytenant has disappeared, leaving behind a staggeringly large trove oforiginal drawings and paintings. Nobody can tell Ethan much about the oldman, except that he came and went in solitude for nearly forty years, hisgenius hidden and unacknowledged. Despite the fact that, strictlyspeaking, the artwork doesn't belong to him, Ethan takes the challenge andmakes a name for the old man - and himself. Soon Ethan has to congratulatehimself on his own genius: for storytelling and salesmanship. But suddenlythe police are interested in talking to him. It seems that the missingartist had a nasty past, and the drawings hanging in the Muller Galleryhave begun to look a lot less like art and a lot more like evidence.Sucked into an investigation four decades cold, Ethan will uncover asecret legacy of shame and death, one that will touch horrifyingly closeto home - and leave him fearing for his own life.