Other People's Money

Other people's money is what museums most like to use to finance new acquisitions. At least, so L.A. private eye Jacob Asch is told when drawn into a case involving a trove of ancient artifacts uncovered during a Turkish excavation. Hired by the father of a runaway Iranian girl, Asch follows her and a young Greek man as they carry two shoeboxes to a mysterious motel rendezvous. Next, he discovers the body of the Greek in a fertilizer pit and is threatened by a former employee of the Turkish Ministry of Antiquities. The man who claims to be the girl's father dismisses Asch, but the police soon find him shot to death, while the girl and another lover have fled. Asch is asked to pursue the case by the director of a local museum, who worries that a trustee wants to interrupt the museum's delicate ongoing illegal efforts to acquire some ancient artifacts--and buy them himself. The cases are, of course, connected, and Asch--is laconic but ever sharp-eyed--supervises the transfer of the treasure and $9 million worth of diamonds on a empty oil rig 12 miles out in the Pacific. (July)