Madison Dupre will stop at nothing to acquire the ancient death mask of a Queen of Babylon for the Piedmont Collection. But the mask was stolen during the fall of Baghdad. Soon the FBI thinks she’s in on the fraud. Madison’s only hope of clearing her name—and saving her life—is to expose the real looters and return the mask to the people of Iraq.
From the author of The New York Times #1 best-selling novel The Carpetbaggers comes the story of Madison Dupre, a young and ambitious art curator who is fixated on reaching the top of the rarefied world of priceless antiquities—an insular playground of the mega-rich, the super-privileged and even the occasional money launderer. This glamorous world is also a world of unimaginable ugliness and ego.
As curator of the prestigious Piedmont Collection, Madison is a rising star who knows how to ruthlessly play the game. She’s there to win, no matter what it takes. When the crown jewel for the museum comes up for auction, the death mask of an ancient queen known as "The Whore of Babylon," she’s determined to acquire it—and does, during a highly charged auction with the world watching.
During the celebratory press conference, a mysterious Iraqi erupts, claiming Navy Seals and Hussein’s Republican Guard looted the mask from the National Museum during the fall of Baghdad. Though dismissed as the ranting of a lunatic, Madison and her employer understand the gravity of the accusation: if true, Madison committed a felony by buying stolen goods and lost a fortune.
Madison quickly realizes she’s being framed. But by whom? Why? And when the Iraqi is murdered, Madison becomes the prime suspect. Grasping that she’s been betrayed by "friends" and is now being stalked by killers, she runs—determined to clear her name. Madison finds herself on an international odyssey spinning in a vortex of deceit and falls into the arms of a mercenary who just might be able to keep her alive as she fights for her life.
When Harold Robbins passed away, he left a treasure trove of stories. The first of a series, The Looters is a collaboration between the Robbins Estate and Junius Podrug, a good friend whose writing Robbins admired, bringing all the sensuality, suspense and action of a Harold Robbins thriller into the 21st century.
Harold Robbins
Harold Robbins (1916–1997) is one of the best-selling American fiction writers of all time, ranking 5th on the World’s Best-Selling Fiction Author List just behind William Shakespeare and Agatha Christie. He wrote over 25 best-selling novels, sold more than 750 million copies in 42 languages and spent over 300 weeks combined on The New York Times best sellers list. His books were adapted into 13 commercially successful films and also television series that garnered numerous Oscar®, Golden Globe® and Primetime Emmy® nominations starring Steve McQueen, Elvis Presley, Laurence Olivier, Bette Davis, Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones and more.The self-proclaimed "world’s best writer in plain English," Robbins wrote novels that resonated with audiences due to their graphic depictions of sex, violence, power and drugs, and the multilayered complexities of his characters, as evidenced by his best-selling novels Never Love a Stranger, The Carpetbaggers, Where Love Has Gone, and The Adventurers. He once said in an interview: "People make their own choices every day about what they are willing to do. We don’t have the right to judge them or label them. At least walk in their shoes before you do."Robbins’ personal life was as fascinating to the public as his novels. An enthusiastic participant in the social and sexual revolution of the 1960s, Robbins cultivated a "playboy" image and maintained friendships with stars including Frank Sinatra, Clint Eastwood, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dino De Laurentiis, Robert Evans, Ringo Starr, Barbara Eden, Lena Horne and Quincy Jones, and was one of the first novelists to be prominently featured in gossip magazines, earning him the title of "The World’s First Rock Star Author."
