BLACK IRIS, PAPERBACK BOOK

The Search for Georgia O'Keeffe

Buck Madison—early thirties, wisecracker, and former FBI Art Crimes agent, is restoring a mountain cabin, when his partner, at a private investigation agency, tells Buck a priceless Georgia O'Keeffe painting has been stolen from a DC art museum. The board wants to keep the theft secret. Buck is the perfect choice to find the painting. But the museum also demands that Lacey Martin – headstrong, intuitive, gorgeous – and a PhD educated curator, help him with the search.

To find the plundered artwork, Lacey recounts the Georgia O'Keeffe origin story of how the artist painted the masterpiece “Black Iris”, Georgia’s marriage to impresario art dealer Alfred Stieglitz, and her secret affair with the founder of the museum. 

But the Georgia O'Keefe painting he's researching now carries the weight of death. Buck learns of O'Keeffe's life, her college years at the University of Virginia, work as an illustrator, teaching out west, and her relationship with photographer Alfred Stieglitz, that eventually unlocks her talent as the preeminent female artist of the 20th century.

From the streets of New York to the deserts of New Mexico, Buck and Lacey chase a murderous mobster in order to recover the stolen Georgia O'Keeffe painting– before the killer can destroy the priceless art. The case is getting absurdly complicated, and dangerous. But just how dangerous is something even Buck doesn't realize, and may not find out until too late. Because the next victims may be them.

This book is a part mystery thriller, part rom-com, a tightly plotted romp into Georgia O’Keeffe’s life, through the art museum world, among the homeless street artists of DC, from New York to Asheville and to Abiquiu, her home in New Mexico. A thrilling joyride that doesn’t let up.

#2 IN THE BUCK MADISON SERIES