Frans Hals' painting The Cavalier in White disappears from a San Francisco gallery. Art security expert Joanna Stark returns from self-imposed retirement to solve the crime from a building she had made burglarproof. But art theft leads to murder, friends become strangers and the past stalks the present. Especially when Joanna's nemesis—a brilliant art thief whose ice-blue eyes haunt her dreams—becomes the most dangerous and perplexing piece in a puzzle that gets closer to home every minute.

Joanna Stark, art lover and part owner of an art security firm, has devised a daring plan to recover two valuable stolen paintings. Here 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.

First Edition. Signed by the author. A near fine book in a near fine dust jacket. Slight shelf wear. A Joanna Stark mystery in the Sonoma Valley wine country.