Boston's married art sleuths are about to discover that you can't fake a murder: "Entertaining . . . good humored . . . Sarah and Max are a winning team" (Baltimore Sun).

If she weren't so fabulous, the Countess Lydia Ouspenska might be considered a gangster's moll. The last time she met Max Bittersohn, Boston's famed art-fraud investigator, she was forging minute Byzantine masterpieces to make ends meet. But when Max bumps into her on the Common, the Countess is back on her feet. She has taken up with Bartolo Arbalest, a master forger currently masquerading as an art restorer. And as Bittersohn knows all too well, even the most genteel fraudster cannot be trusted. With the help of his wife, Sarah, Max looks for the secret lair of Bartolo's supposed restoration guild. But when the guild's clients begin to die, it becomes clear there is more at stake than a few fabricated icons. The art may be fake, but for Max and Sarah the danger is very real.