THE MADRID CONNECTION IBD

Sinopse

Of all the paintings in all the galleries in all of Madrid.They chose a Caravaggio.And they chose last night.On the nightáMadridáhosts theáChampions League Final, disaster erupts at theáPrado Museum: a guard is murdered and aáCaravaggioáis stolen.British art detectiveáBenjamin Blake, hoping for a quiet few days in the city on a low-key assignment, instead finds himself dragged into the chaos he swore to avoid. Suddenly heâÇÖs the investigationâÇÖs uninvited headache - and possibly its key. Rival mafias begin circling. The Asians want him gone. The Italians want him alive - at least for now. As the cultural bureaucrats drag him into the case to deflect from their own failings, MadridâÇÖs homicide chief - choking on his own lies - wants him nowhere near the case, let alone the truth.Across the city, freelance journalistáElena Carmonaáis in Madrid on a separate assignment, digging into the poison of racism in football - an evil that opens into a far wider conspiracy. Trafficking, exploitation and revenge run beneath the pitch and deep into the criminal underworld, drawing her straight towards the same mafias now circling the stolen Caravaggio. As her investigation crashes straight into BenjaminâÇÖs, they find themselves at the centre of something far darker than either imagined.Art, money, football, murder, mafiaá- Madrid was never going to keep them apart.The Madrid Connectionáis a fast, gripping and darkly funny page-turner - the brilliant sequel toáThe Barcelona Connection.