Publisher's Synopsis
A group of residents at a retirement com-munity in the Arizona desert listen in astonishment to the story of shadowy Dutch landscape painter, Stijn De Bruyne. Some from De Bruyne's past said his activities in occupied Holland during World War II were heroic; others alleged he committed war crimes. Nonetheless, De Bruyne turned up in the United States after the war under mysterious circumstances and moved west where he hoped to find and paint perfect landscapes. An attractive café owner, with whom he fell in love, agreed to sell his paintings in her place of business. Still, De Bruyne was unable to dodge his past. Former Dutch colleagues tracked him down and, armed with claims of De Bruyne's disreputable past, attempted to blackmail the artist to get his help in their plan to steal valuable pieces of art from a New York museum. De Bruyne knew them to be ruthless, and he soon found himself trapped between the FBI, which suspected the Dutch gang was up to something nefarious and demanded the artist's cooperation with them, and the would-be thieves who threatened to expose De Bruyne as a Nazi collaborator and Jew hunter should he refuse to cooperate with their plan. De Bruyne had to tread a thin line between the two factions, both of which regarded him as expendable.
