A man in a navy suit stands at a candlelit dining table beside a blue-and-gold tureen

A literary thriller of courtesy that works

A Well-Mannered Monster

A provenance researcher finds second ink on an accession card. The man who hired her has no conscience, and perfect manners.

  • Second Ink
  • The Note
  • A Clean Exit
  • The Quiet Table

He looks at objects before people.

In this book

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Published by Nine Rooms
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A novel of porcelain, provenance, and a New York museum in eleven weeks

About this book Available now

An elegant advisory man with no conscience is hired to keep a New York decorative-arts museum steady through an exhibition that would put a looted Meissen service on the world's tables. A contract provenance researcher reads the second ink on an accession card and begins to see the human pattern under the porcelain.

He learns the new manners of the age faster than the sincere people. She has paper. The opening is in eleven weeks.

A Well-Mannered Monster is a literary thriller of villainy under the guise of courtesy.