A Tim Lacy Artworld Mystery
One of the most fabulous treasures of the Renaissance, the Borgia Chalice, carries with it a dark aura - for legend has it that the notorious Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, could use this cup to poison his enemies, yet drink from it himself without harm.
Security expert Tim Lacy has no superstitious fear of the chalice's supposed powers, and nor do the six people who drink from it after Lacy buys it for a client. But within the hour, four of those people are dead, all of them art critics who had mercilessly attacked the chalice's late owner, Gregor Santori, as a fraud. Yet Santori's son and daughter, who also drank from the cup, are unaffected.
Revenge from beyond the grave? Family vendetta? An attempt to blacken the Santori name further? Lacy takes a break from his business and sets out to unearth the truth in Rome, where revelations of sordid Vatican politics in the dog days of the papacy have remarkable contemporary echoes. And soon Lacy find himself skittling around the art establishments of two continents in pursuit of a ruthless criminal running a multi-million dollar racket.
