A treasure of 96 "eggs" is found by small town auctioneer Duffy Patterson at a local spinster's farm in upstate New York. The discovery takes Duffy into the high flying and highly entertaining world of multi-million dollar auctions to place the mysterious find of the Faberge masterpieces. Fans of Nan and Ivan Lyons' Someone is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe will enjoy this fast-paced country/city romp. Nan Lyons has been a food and travel writer for over twenty years, contributing to Bon Appetit, Travel + Leisure, More, Hamptons, L'official New York Newsday, as well as creating the Fielding's Agenda series and the Access Walking guides. In collaboration with her husband Ivan, she wrote the first novel with a food background, "Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe" which was then made into a major motion picture. They went on to write four other novels as well as scores of articles on food and travel. "The Lyonses top their earlier novels with this, their third, and incredible but highly entertaining tale. The volatile plot is based on a treasure found by Dorothy (Duffy) Patterson, an auctioneer working out of the family barn in Perry Falls, a small New York Town.
In the pitifully sparse possessions of an elderly spinster, Natalie Corbett, Duffy discovers 96 "eggs" created by Faberge for the tragic Russian Czarina Alexandra. The collection embroils Duffy and her lover, Ben Perry, with numerous fanatics desperate to acquire the jewels. Duffy's biggest problem is the wooing of sexy Charles Wyndham, owner of a prestigious Manhattan gallery, a man avid for the honor of auctioning off the treasure. Running concurrently with the main story is the sad account of how Alexandra's gems came into the possession of poor, lonely Natalie--by an ironic trick of fate." - Publishers Weekly (c) PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. "Fast, inventive, saucily detailed fun: a Country Mouse/City Mouse frolic with tender moments..and heaps of cinematic potential" - Kirkus Reviews "You'll be entranced by the glamorous, treacherous world of multimillion-dollar auctions, where hearts--and other treasures beyond price--are going...going...gone!" - COSMOPOLITAN