Set in Rome, The Raphael Affair features the perpetually beset General Bottando of the Italian National Art Theft Squad; his glamorous assistant, Flavia di Stefano; and Jonathan Argyll, a British art historian. When Jonathan is arrested for breaking into an obscure church in Rome, he claims that it contains a long-lost Raphael hidden under a painting by Mantini. The painting disappears-then reappears in the hands of the top British art dealer, Edward...

From internationally bestselling author Iain Pears comes the seventh in his Jonathan Argyll series — an intriguing mystery of love, loss, and artistic license.
For newlywed and Italian art theft squad head Flavia di Stefano, the honeymoon is over when a painting, borrowed from the Louvre and en route to a celebratory exhibition, is stolen. Desperate to avoid public embarrassment — and to avoid paying a ransom — the Italian prime...