Marcia Muller: There Hangs the Knife (USA 1989)

From the Publisher:
TO CATCH A THIEF
Joanna Stark, art lover and part owner of an art security firm, has devised a daring plan to recover two valuable stolen paintings. Her scheme will also entrap one of the world's greatest art thieves -- a man with whom she shares a passionate and violent past.

But when she finds an unidentified corpse in her friend's London flat, Joanna realizes her best laid plans have gone murderously awry. Plunging deep into Britain's fabulous art world and terrifying underworld, Joanna must confront her nightmare past as she races to recover the paintings... and stay alive in the bargain.

"Joanna Stark, female sleuth, is brazen, courageous, feminine, but most of all convincing." -- Mystery News
"Refreshingly not hard-boiled." -- USA Today

Marcia Muller: There Hangs the Knife. A Joanna Stark Mystery. Worldwide Library / Gaslight Books, ISBN: 0373260342 (October, 1989), 218 p., $3.50.

Marcia Muller: There Hangs the Knife (USA 1988)

From the Publisher:
Joanna Stark can't seem to forgive and forget: what happened twenty years ago still plagues her. She knows the only way it can be resolved is if she gets her revenge. So she devises an intricately plotted plan to entrap and expose Anthony Parducci, an art thief who also happens to be her worst enemy and a man who once, a long time ago, she truly cared about.

Knowing that two paintings from Pieter Bruegel's Proverb Series have already been stolen, and most certainly by Parducci, she has a friend order and then show a "copy" of a Bruegel in his London gallery in order to lure Parducci in.

When the painting is stolen, Joanna is hrilled that her plan has been set in motion. But she soon realizes that someone double-crossed her and took the Bruegel before Parducci could get to it. Now both Parducci and Joanna are out to get the thief. But, as Joanna soon finds out, Parducci's is a dangerous path to cross for he will stop at nothing to get what he wants... including murder.

Set in the international art world and he criminal underworld of London, There Hangs the Knife is loaded with intrigue, danger, and suspense. It is also the story of a woman trying to come to terms with her past.

This second book in Marcia Muller's highly acclaimed Joanna Stark series will attract new fans as well as old.

MARCIA MULLER is the author of Cavalier in White (SMP, 1986) and the popular Sharon McCone mystery series. She lives in northern California.

Marcia Muller: There Hangs the Knife. A Joanna Stark Mystery. St. Martin's Press / Thomas Dunne Books, ISBN: 0312018339 (June (?), 1988), 211 p., $15.95.