Iain Pears: The Immaculate Deception (UK 2014)

From the Publisher:
Clever and witty art history-mystery featuring Jonathon Argyll, scholar and sleuth, from the bestselling author of 'An Instance of the Fingerpost'.
How do you resolve a scandalous kidnapping without paying the ransom or attracting any attention? It's not a question Flavia di Stefano, acting head of the Italian Art Theft Squad, would normally need to answer. Unfortunately, the Italian prime minister is asking it.

As Flavia begins a desperate search for the Claude Lorrain landscape, snatched while on loan from the Louvre, her husband embarks on a rather more leisurely quest. Jonathan Argyll is keen to discover the provenance of a small Renaissance painting, titled The Immaculate Conception, as a favour to its owner. His enthusiasm wanes when the investigation brings him into unexpected danger. There's no turning back, though, and soon husband and wife are uncovering shocking secrets that will bring them into the path of some very dangerous enemies indeed...

Iain Pears: The Immaculate Deception. HarperCollins, ISBN: 9780007387526 (January, 2014), eBook, 0.40 MB (ca. 288 p.), £2.99.

Iain Pears: The Immaculate Deception (UK 2007)

From the Publisher:
'Very entertaining' -- TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
How do you resolve a scandalous kidnapping without paying the ransom or attracting any attention? It's not a question Flavia di Stefano, acting head of the Italian Art Theft Squad, would normally need to answer. Unfortunately, the Italian prime minister is asking it.

As Flavia begins a desperate search for the Claude Lorrain landscape, snatched while on loan from the Louvre, her husband embarks on a rather more leisurely quest. Jonathan Argyll is keen to discover the provenance of a small Renaissance painting, titled The Immaculate Conception, as a favour to its owner. His enthusiasm wanes when the investigation brings him into unexpected danger. There's no turning back, though, and soon husband and wife are uncovering shocking secrets that will bring them into the path of some very dangerous enemies indeed... enemies indeed...

'There is nothing so satisfactory as the deconstruction of a puzzle in the hands of such an erudite and sure-footed author' -- THE TIMES

'The writing is graceful, the characters are people in whose company it would be a delight to pass an evening. And Pears gives a rich sense of what it is to live in raddled, ever-glorious Rome' -- SUNDAY TIMES

Iain Pears: The Immaculate Deception. Harper, ISBN: 0007229224 (July, 2007), 282 p., £7.99.

Iain Pears: The Immaculate Deception (USA 2005)

From the Publisher:
From internationally bestselling author lain Pears comes the seventh in his Jonathan Argyll series-an intriguing mystery of love, loss, and artistic license

For newlywed and Italian art theft squad head Flavia di Stefano, the honeymoon is over when a painting, borrowed from the Louvre and en route to a celebratory exhibition, is stolen. Desperate to avoid public embarrassment -- and to avoid paying a ransom-the Italian prime minister leans hard on Flavia to get it back quickly and quietly.

Across town, her husband, art historian Jonathan Argyll, begins an investigation of his own, tracing the past of a small Renaissance painting -- an Immaculate Conception -- owned by Flavia's mentor, retired general Taddeo Bottando. Soon both husband and wife uncover astonishing and chilling secrets, and Flavia's investigation takes a sudden turn from the search for an art thief to the hunt for a murderer.

lain Pears is the author of the New York Times bestseller An Instance of the Fingerpost and The Portrait. He lives in Oxford, England.

Iain Pears: The Immaculate Deception. Scribner's, ISBN: 0743272412 (March, 2005), 213 p., $13.00.

Iain Pears: The Immaculate Deception (USA 2001)

From the Publisher:
From bestselling author lain Pears comes an ingenious new mystery -- the seventh in his Jonathan Argyll series
THE IMMACULATE DECEPTION
For newlywed and Italian Art Theft Squad head Flavia di Stefano, the honeymoon is over when a painting, borrowed from the Louvre and en route to a celebratory exhibition, is stolen. Desperate to avoid public embarrassment -- and to avoid paying a ransom-the Italian prime minister leans hard on Flavia to get it back quickly and quietly.

Across town her husband, art historian Jonathan Argyll, begins an investigation of his own tracing the past of a small Renaissance painting -- an Immaculate Conception -- owned by Flavia's mentor, retired General Taddeo Bottando, Soon both husband and wife uncover astonishing and chilling secrets, and Flavia's investigation takes a sudden turn from the search for an art thief to the hunt for a murderer.

Iain Pears: The Immaculate Deception. Pocket Books, ISBN: 0743422082 (December, 2001), 259 p., $6.99.

Iain Pears: The Immaculate Deception (UK 2001)

From the Publisher:
When an important, politically sensitive painting is kidnapped in Rome, Flavia di Stefano, acting head of the Italian Art Theft Squad, is told to get it back at all costs - without causing any embarrassment to the country and without paying the ransom. Put in an impossible position, she turns for help to her old mentor General Taddeo Bottando, who casts a wholly unexpected light on the crime.

In the meantime, her husband, English art historian Jonathan Argyll, embarks on an investigation of his own. As a gift to Bottando, he decides to establish the provenance of a small Renaissance painting, an Immaculate Conception, currently hanging on the wall of the general's apartment.

Absorbing and ingeniously plotted, The Immaculate Deception is both a fascinating art-history puzzle and a gripping murder mystery as the search for the truth uncovers shocking secrets from the past and leads Argyll and Flavia into the path of some very dangerous enemies indeed.

Iain Pears: The Immaculate Deception. HarperCollins, ISBN: 0006511112 (July, 2001), 282 p., £5.99.

Iain Pears: The Immaculate Deception (USA 2000)

From the Publisher:
From the acclaimed author of An Instance of the Fingerpost ("may well be the best 'historical mys- tery' ever written," said The Boston Globe) comes a luminous new Jonathan Argyll/Flavia di Stefano crime novel set against the richly evocative back- drop of Rome and Tuscany.

In his first new novel since An Instance of the Fingerpost became an international bestseller. lain Pears transports us to Rome, where an impudent thief has stolen a politically sensitive paint- ing on loan from a foreign museum.

Summoned to see the prime minister, Flavia di Stefano, acting head of Italy's Art Theft Squad, is told to retrieve the painting without publicity or payment of ransom. But does the prime minister mean what he says? And why was this particular painting stolen? Faced with a case sure to cause her grief, Flavia turns to her mentor. General Taddeo Bottando, who has a wholly unexpected view of the situation.

Flavia's husband of four weeks, art historian Jonathan Argyll, is busy, meanwhile, with a mission of his own. As a gift to the soon-to-retire Bottando, Jonathan will track down the provenance of a small Renaissance painting, an Immaculate Conception, now hanging on Bottando's wall. Who owned the painting over the years, and how did it come into Bottando's hands?

Flavia's search for an art thief soon becomes a hunt for a killer, while Jonathan's probe uncovers some startling secrets and an unlikely alliance as poignant as it is surprising Absorbing, witty, inge- niously plotted, The Immaculate Deception is stylish entertainment from a justly celebrated author!

Iain Pears: The Immaculate Deception. Scribner's, ISBN: 0743212576 (October, 2000), 221 p., $25.00.