Paid and Loving Eyes

Jonathan Gash's antiques-dealing, sleuthing rougue Lovejoy is back for a dazzling adventure that takes him from East Anglia to Paris, Zurich, and the heart of the underground antiques trade.While scraping by as a driver for Gaunt's Tryste Service - rented vans for romantic rendezvous - and having a sweetly passionate affair with a rich married woman he knows only as Almira, Lovejoy once again finds his divvying skills in demand. Local underworld figure Big John Sheehan orders him to judge an illicit competition involving an antique vase, and Lovejoy's ability to divine a genuine antique reveals that Big John has been duped. Soon afterward, when one member of the local antiques circle is killed and another gravely injured in a suspicious accident, Lovejoy realizes he has stumbled into an international ring of smuggling, forgery, and exploitation of the most sinister kind.Through circumstances he doesn't quite understand, Lovejoy is hired by Monsieur Troude, a powerful French entrepreneur, and soon finds himself juggling his love of antiques with his desire to stay alive. But before he can gain an understanding of the deadly scam, he must survive encounters with treasure troves of genuine and fake antiques, the Stolen and Purloined Antiques Rescue (KGB of the antiques trade), and a variety of beautiful, dangerous women.