The Duke of Cleveland

A Milan Jacovich Mystery

by Les Roberts

  • Format: Softcover, 272 pages, 5.1 x 8 inches
  • ISBN: 978-1-59851-006-5
  • Price: $13.95
Description

#6 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series . . .

“ The wonderful thing about art is that it doesn't really have to do anything . . . All that is asked of it is that it be beautiful. It doesn't work that way with people.”

So begins a sortie by Cleveland private investigator Milan Jacovich (it's pronounced MY-lan YOCK-ovich) into the cutthroat world of fine art. A slumming young heiress, April Delavan, hires Milan to find her most recent boyfriend, a potter who has absconded with $18,000 of her trust fund money.

But it doesn't figure that his disappearance would pique the interest of someone like Victor Gaimari, the elegant and affable mob figure with whom straight arrow Milan seems to be developing a love-hate relationship.

Milan soon learns that the former boyfriend may have made a few other enemies, and suddenly, fine art starts looking a little rough around the edges. It turns out truth and beauty don't always mix well— at least in the art business.

Book Excerpt:
Chapter One

It doesn't work that way with people.

Which was too bad for April Delavan, because she was beautiful, all right. Eighteen years old or so, with none of the Drew Barrymore seen-too-much-too-soon look that many of today's young people affect. Blonde curly hair framed a porcelain-smooth face that needed no makeup and that was punctuated by a delightful dimple just to the left of her mouth. Her eyes were remarkably large, the irises cornflower blue surrounded by dark rims; they gave her an ingenuous look of perpetual astonishment. Her aquiline nose had never felt the knife of a cosmetic surgeon but was actually genetic, and she possessed a pink rosebud mouth that couldn't seem to make up its mind whether to be heartbreakingly innocent or heart-stoppingly sensuous.

But in today's demanding world more is required of even the most beautiful people than just showing up, and as she sat across the desk from me in my office, I looked into those incredible blue eyes and ascertained sadly that no one was home.

I didn't think she was on any drugs. But April Delavan had that vague, bemused sort of look people get when subjected to a classroom lecture on the political and social currents of sixteenth-century Austria, and I finally realized she simply wasn't paying much attention.

She told me she had found my name in the Cleveland Area Consumer Yellow Pages under Detective Agencies. I'm not the first listing— I call my business Milan Security after my first name, which . . . [ Read More Free Samples ]

Reviews
A corker of a whodunit...Gritty, grim, humorous, sentimental - a perfect 10. — Chicago Sun-Times
The characters are vivid, and the plot goes in unusual directions, but ultimately it's Cleveland that captures our hearts. — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Solid entertainment . . . populated with superior characters and snappy dialogue. — The Plain Dealer
Reading Les Roberts' Milan Jacovich mysteries you get to see a lot of Cleveland. The old town is looking good. — New York Times Book Review
Slovenian sleuth Milan Jacovich once again has the run of the city on Lake Erie in this warm-hearted series. Ethnic to the core, loyal to friends, beset by strong views, Jacovich is an opinionated, anachronistic soul. — Publisher's Weekly
About Les Roberts
Les Roberts

Les Roberts is the author of 14 mystery novels featuring Cleveland detective Milan Jacovich, as well as 9 other books of fiction. The past president of both the Private Eye Writers of America and the American Crime Writer's League, he came to mystery writing after a 24-year career in Hollywood. He was the first producer and head writer of the Hollywood Squares and wrote for the Andy Griffith Show, the Jackie Gleason Show, and the Man from U.N.C.L.E., among others. He has been a professional actor, a singer, a jazz musician, and a teacher. In 2003 he received the Sherwood Anderson Literary Award. A native of Chicago, he now lives in Northeast Ohio. More About Les Roberts

Contains References to:

Chagrin Falls, Cleveland Fiction, Cleveland Flats, Cleveland Mysteries, Cuyahoga County, Lake County, Little Italy, Mayfield Road, Milan Jacovich, Severance Hall, Strohs, University Circle,

Other books by Les Roberts:
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