Harmony In Flesh and Black

Nicholas Kilmer's Harmony in Flesh and Black exposes a dep knowledge of the sometimes tricky and treacherous haut monde of art dealers, collectors, and curators. Smartly tailored, well-to-do Beacon Hill collector Clayton Reed has habits so refined that he doesn't even venture out to pick up his own acquisitions. He leaves that sort of work to Fred Taylor, a veteran of clandestine action in Southeast Asia who is presently working as Reed's factotum. A passionate noncollector, Fred researches possible purchases and fights for them at auction—but he is really more interested in his blossoming relationship with Molly Riley, an independent-minded Cambridge librarian. In this series debut, Reed suspects that there may be a Vermeer painting worth millions lying underneath the oils of an unexciting nineteenth-century landscape. Tension mounts as he and Fred try to keep the vultures away nd their hunch to themselves before auction. Meanwhile, Reed buys an unsigned...