Chiaroscuro

THE DEADLY ARTS

With money in the bank, famous American artist Jacob Molnar could afford to turn his back on the art world's phoniness...especially the overhyped, undertalented Carlos Smith, who specialized in promoting his own work at high prices. But in an urgent call to Molnar, Smith shed light on a multimillion-dollar art scam heavily shaded with murder. Before Smith himself became the victim of a deadly mugging, he was able to prove that Mohar's mentor, another giant of twentieth-century art had been killed to protect the scam. Soon the trail of lost art and fresh bodies stretched from Sotheby's auction floor to L.A.'s posh galleries. And Molnar was spinning in a kaleidoscope of crime, in which murder showed promise of becoming the most modern art---and he its next creation....