Drop Dead Art

Wendel (he has no first name) returns from vacation and discovers his house sitter dead from a gunshot to the head and the only thing missing - a photograph-poster of a painting Wendel purchased years before for three dollars. The murder and theft lure Wendel from the art worlds of Lucerne and Paris to a survivalist haven in Northern Idaho where Wendel must outwit an experienced survivalist in a chase through the national forest. A growing list of suspects with an interest in the stolen painting, includes a Nobel Laureate at a biotech firm where Wendel consults on computer services, a gun seller, a vineyard owner, and Wendel's former wife who had a brief tryst with the house sitter who's death begins the story.