With one month to go until publication of The Heist, I’m very happy to share the preface, which gives you a sense of where the story begins. The only other thing I can share for now is that immediately after reading this page, you will be transported to the gallery of the eccentric London art dealer Julian Isherwood who is about to find himself in a bit of trouble.

On October 18, 1969, Caravaggio’s Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrencevanished from the Oratorio di San Lorenzo in Palermo, Sicily. The Nativity, as it is commonly known, is one of Caravaggio’s last great masterworks, painted in 1609 while he was a fugitive from justice, wanted by papal authorities in Rome for killing a man during a swordfight. For more than four decades, the altarpiece has been the most sought-after stolen painting in the world, and yet its exact whereabouts, even its fate, have remained a mystery. Until now…