Strings / Riverstone Press (ePub)

Beckett Trumaine puts his long career in the past to pursue his passion for music and becomes embroiled in an international network of criminals engaged in all manner of 'violin fraud'
His musical creativity is crippled by a composer's form of writer's block. His frustration and dark moods are wearing on his long marriage and he is lost in the search for his deep musical roots.
He seeks out an old friend, Rolf 'the Duke' Ducherstein who owns an elite instrument brokerage and violin shop in San Francisco. The 'Duke' is a genius at authenticating rare and valuable stringed instruments, one of a handful of experts on the continent. With his wife's reluctant blessing Beck goes to learn the trade working with the Duke.
Part of his job entails transporting valuable instruments between the 'Dukes' and two other well known expert's brokerages. It's not long before Beck smells a rat but it's too late. Before he realizes what's going on he finds himself in the middle of a ring of thieves: dealing in stolen instruments, fraud, forgery, money laundering and all manner of deceptions in the trade of high end members of the violin family.
It gets dirty and the thieves exact their toll. Beck has to put a stop to them before he, the 'Duke' and all the others who are the colourful cast of 'Ducherstein Violins' are ruined.