"Abbas is just seventeen years old when he leaves his family to serve in the court of Tipu Sultan, a volatile and unpredictable ruler. An inspired woodcarver, Abbas is apprenticed to a master toy maker in order to build a massive tiger automaton, a gift to celebrate the return of the Sultan's sons from British captivity. Working alongside the legendary French clockmaker Monsieur du Leze, Abbas hones his craft and learns to read French and then meets...

Rome: In the small church of Santa Giuliana, a magnificent Caravaggio altarpiece disappears without a trace in the middle of the night. Paris: In the basement vault of the Malevich Society, the curator is shocked to discover the disappearance of the Society's great treasure, White on White by Suprematist painter Kasimir Malevich. London: At the National Gallery of Modern Art, the museum's newest acquisition is stolen just hours after it was purchased...

Between Parker's 1961 debut and his return in the late 1990s, the world of crime changed considerably. Now fake IDs and credit cards had to be purchased from specialists; increasingly sophisticated policing made escape and evasion tougher; and, worst of all, money had gone digital-the days of cash-stuffed payroll trucks were long gone. Firebreak takes Parker to a palatial Montana "hunting lodge" where a dot-com millionaire hides a gallery of stolen...

In the aftermath of an aristocrat's murder on September 10, 2001, for her priceless Van Gogh painting, Anna, a World Trade Center survivor, takes advantage of her "presumed dead" status and travels throughout the world to avenge the woman's death.