The Icon Thief by Alec Nevala-Lee book signing

First time local author, Alec Nevala-Lee, will be at After-Words Books on Thursday March 29, 2012 from 6:30-8:30 reading from and signing copies of his first book The Icon Thief (Signet; 978-0-451-23620-3; March 6, 2012 $9.99). Wine reception following.

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.

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 by Signet in March 2012, to be followed by a sequel, City of Exiles, later this year. He lives with his wife in Oak Park, Illinois.