A corpse in a hotel. A painting shrouded in mystery. And a trail that leads the investigator into the depths of recent European history – and into those of his own family. The Ninth Painting is the first volume of a gripping series of mysteries featuring art expert Lennard Lomberg.
Bonn, April 2016. Lennard Lomberg receives a mysterious phone call. A man named Dupret urges him to organize the return of a lost Cubist painting said to be illegally in the possession of a French foundation. Shortly afterwards, Dupret is found dead in a hotel. There is no trace of the painting. Lomberg immediately becomes the target of detective Sina Röhm’s investigations, which show that the presumed Picasso once stolen by the Nazis can be connected directly to Lomberg’s father’s past. Lomberg senior had worked his way up from a simple lieutenant in occupied Paris in the 1940s to become the Federal Attorney General of post-war Germany.
Lennard Lomberg becomes a detective on his own behalf. Diving deeper and deeper into the tragic story of the “ninth painting,” he is ultimately confronted with an explosive truth about his own family. But the emerging art-historical uproar attracts the attention of unscrupulous opponents who are willing to walk over dead bodies.
