Grand Scale Larceny: The Heist of the Flemish Primitives

It all starts with a murder in Antwerp by people connected to Chechnya and the Russian Mafia. There are repercussions in Washington DC, where Hannah Jacobs is the curator for the new National Museum of Art. She is organizing a unique exhibition of more than thirty Flemish Primitives paintings. They are on their way from various European countries to the United States when they disappear, one shipment at a time. Follow Hannah’s attempt to solve the heist of over a half billion dollars in irreplaceable masterworks from the fifteenth century. When she gets close, the mafia gets even closer to her.

 

Hugo Uyttenhove was born in Belgium in 1949 and first came to the United States on a one-year American Field Service scholarship in 1967. He returned years later to study, receiving a PhD in System Science from Binghamton University. After writing several technical books, he has written his first mystery novel. He includes experiences from his travels, his language skills and his passion for all things Flemish. He resides in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife Kristin Conrad.
The writing of this book was prompted by a request of a friend in Hollywood to write a screenplay. Proving to be unsatisfactory because of the lack of in-depth descriptions of people, places and things, I decided to write the full story first.  After self-publishing the book, I wrote the screenplay as a spec-script with much more enthusiasm. The script is currently making the rounds...