Spiral

Nicholas Greer is a writer who's broke and on the verge of divorce. The life of Frank Spira, the controversial painter he's been researching for six years, has become more real to him than his own. Nick has just finished writing his book when he gets a call telling him that one of Spira's closest friends, Jacob Grossman, a man who went missing twenty-six years ago, has been spotted in Manhattan. Nick tracks Grossman down, hoping to find answers to the few niggling questions that...
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Nicholas Greer is a writer who's broke and on the verge of divorce. The life of Frank Spira, the controversial painter he's been researching for six years, has become more real to him than his own. Nick has just finished writing his book when he gets a call telling him that one of Spira's closest friends, Jacob Grossman, a man who went missing twenty-six years ago, has been spotted in Manhattan.
Nick tracks Grossman down, hoping to find answers to the few niggling questions that remain. Instead he gets news of a work created by Spira, which the artist supposedly destroyed. If it existed, it would be worth millions. When Grossman is brutally murdered an hour after the interview, Nick finds himself drawn into a search for explanations. Only as he comes to understand the disturbing truth behind the lost painting, does he realize that he too is the object of someone's scrutiny, a ruthless art collector for whom the missing work is Spira's crowning achievement. Moving between London, New York, and Tangier, Spiral is a relentlessly suspenseful story of art and obsession.

"From the Trade Paperback edition."