The Florentine Marriage Chest

A marriage chest was broken apart.

A woman risked everything to protect another's work.

And the panel in Philadelphia may not be the one it claims to be.

Antiques appraiser Susan Stewart was hired to answer a straightforward question about a painted Renaissance panel: where did it come from? The moment her bare hands touch the wood, the question stops being straightforward. She is in Florence in 1498, in a city turning violently against its own people, watching a woman hide another woman's work from the men who would destroy it.

Then the restoration expert who handled the panel is found murdered.

The conservation records look clean, but Susan has seen enough to doubt them. Somewhere between Florence and Philadelphia, the chest was taken apart, its panels swapped and sold, and the paperwork altered to hide what happened. Someone has spent years protecting that deception. Now someone has killed to keep it buried.

What Susan saw can't be entered into evidence. To catch a killer, she has to prove it the hard way, one document at a time, before whoever dismantled the chest decides she knows too much.

And Felix Harcourt is finally ready to say the name he has guarded for years. Alexander Renshaw. Felix admits that Marian had doubts about Renshaw's celebrated collection long ago. If she was right, the marriage chest may be only the beginning.

The Florentine Marriage Chest is Book Six of The Objects Remember Mysteries, a dual-timeline series in which objects remember the past, but only evidence can prove the truth.

For readers of Kate Morton and Barbara Erskine.