Deadly Icons: Azrael Harvests Art Thieves

.THRILLER FANS WILL LOVE MILTON, Untested Milton Lessing is sent to Cyprus to find the killer of his insurance firm's local manager and his uncle and a precious stolen icon, Milton is no ordinary hero of crime stories. He is shorter than average, bespectacled, a scholar of human nature and criminology, but, as the son of a cop, he can handle himself. On the plane, he meets Joe, who reminds him of the philosopher Zeno of Cyprus. Joe tells Milton his daughter Elena, an archaeologist, can help him find the icon. Milton enters a world of villainy. His arrival causes panic among people who have dark secrets, including the company secretary, the crooked financial adviser of a Russian countess, a real estate developer, his sales manager, the wife of a local politician, whose affair would ruin her husband's career, the hidden Mr. Big, whose terrible secret is the motive behind the theft, and the master fence and his artist, who painted the fake. A cryptic character known as The Voice sends an assassin to kill Milton, and others entangled in various schemes; each separately plans to eliminate the nosy detective. Enter Elena, the most beautiful woman Milton has ever seen, but icy and remote, a dead ringer for Aphrodite. He with his razor-sharp mind and she with her remarkable psychic powers complement each other to a T and form a great duo. From the abbot of a remote monastery, who seems too eager to get the insurance money, they learn that a Russian monk had visited there ostensibly on a spiritual quest but left with just the knapsack on his back. On the way back from the monastery, a cement truck tries to ram them into a gorge, but Elena saves them with her driving skills. At the Bacchus café, Elena introduces Milton to her friend Sabazjos, who reminds Milton of Dionysus and becomes another ally. Milton dreams that his new friends are reincarnations of Zeno, Aphrodite, and Dionysus. Are they real, or are they from another time and place? When Milton tells Callia, museum director, a dark femme fatale, about the Russian connection, she arranges for him to meet Countess Bolkonskaya, scion of the local Russian community. The inspector, meanwhile, summons Milton to the morgue and shows him two corpses, a monk, who was found hanged in the monastery that Milton had visited, and a petty thief, who took Milton's picture in the hotel. Who is behind these unrelated murders? The police throw Milton under the bus. The inspector is livid and suggests that Milton leave the island before the "deadly icon" claims more lives. At the countess's Milton meets Gregory, her financial adviser, and her wicked servants Boris and his wife, Olga. While viewing the countess's dazzling art collection, Milton asks questions about The Holy Trinity, a precious icon he suspects is fake. Has he stumbled on another art scheme? Is this another deadly icon? Gregory is nonplussed and invites Milton to a party on board his yacht. Milton goes to the party, meets a cross-section of the New Russia, and during the drunken merrymaking slips below to search the staterooms. While examining the contents of a closet, he feels a hand on his shoulder, turns around, and everything goes black. Milton's friends watch in dismay as the lights of the yacht recede into the blackness of the night. Milton has been kidnapped! Who can save him? Travel to exotic Cyprus to find out and meet a host of memorable good and evil characters in this epic, informative, and gripping, action-packed thriller that asks the big existential questions, contains many surprises and has an inspiring message.. .