Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2012
416 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
A controversial masterpiece resurfaces in Budapest. A ballerina's headless corpse is found beneath the boardwalk at Brighton Beach. And New York's Russian mafia is about to collide with the equally ruthless art world...
Maddy Blume, an ambitious young art buyer for a Manhattan hedge fund, is desperate to track down a priceless painting by Marcel Duchamp, the most influential artist of the twentieth century.
The discovery of a woman's decapitated body thrusts criminal investigator Alan Powell into a search for the same painting, with its enigmatic image of a headless nude.
And a Russian thief and assassin known as the Scythian must steal the painting to save his reputation - and his life.
The murderous race is on. And in the lead is an insidious secret society intent on reclaiming the painting for reasons of its own - and by any means necessary...
Paperback original
"Starred Review. Nevala-Lee's cerebral, exciting debut proves there's plenty of life left in the Da Vinci Code–style thriller as long as fresh venues and original characters enhance the familiar plot elements and genre tropes." - Publishers Weekly
"Alec Nevala-Lee is no debut author; he must have been a thriller writer in some past life. This one has everything: great writing, great characters, great story, great bad guy... The Icon Thief is smart, sophisticated, and has enough fast-paced action to keep anyone up past midnight." - Paul Christopher, New York Times bestselling author of The Templar Cross
"Twists and turns aplenty... Add a storyline where almost nothing is as it first appears, and where the plot turns around on itself to reveal startling contradictions, and the result is a book that grips and holds the reader like a vise. I devoured it in a single sitting." - James Becker, New York Times bestselling author of The Messiah Secret
"Alec Nevala-Lee comes roaring out of the gate with a novel that's as thrilling as it is thought-provoking, as unexpected as it is erudite. The Icon Thief is a wild ride through a fascinating and morally complex world, a puzzle Duchamp himself would have applauded. Bravo." - Jesse Kellerman, national bestselling author of The Genius
This information about The Icon Thief was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Alec Nevala-Lee was born in 1980 in Castro Valley, California. He graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor's degree in Classics, and worked for several years as an associate at a global investment firm based in New York. His first novel, The Icon Thief, will be released in March 2012, to be followed by a sequel, City of Exiles, later in 2012. He lives with his wife in Oak Park, Illinois. Visit his website at http://nevalalee.wordpress.com.
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