Dr. Reggie Lee, new at London’s National Gallery, is planning a small exhibition of three almost identical Caravaggio paintings when she discovers a fourth. One must be a forgery. That discovery detonates multiple murders. Like Flavia di Stefano in Iain Pears’ art history mysteries, Reggie is attractive, knowledgeable when it comes to art, and percipient when it comes to people with motives to defraud.

Ruth Brandon divides her time between London and France. She is working on the second title in this series. She previously published Surreal Lives: The Surrealists, 1917–1945, a work of nonfiction.