art treasures in war

The Amber Room was commissioned by Frederick I of Prussia in 1701 and given as a gift to Russia's Peter the Great. It remained as one of Russia's, and mankind's, greatest treasures for two hundred years until the Nazis invaded Russia. The vast, intricately worked panels of amber--many times more valuable than gold-- were wrenched from their walls, packed into crates, and taken to Konigsberg on the Baltic coast where they remained until the Nazi surrender in 1945. The real Amber Room has never been seen since, although there is a replica in Russia today.

Manhattan lawyer Mara Coyne is drawn into a case involving a lost masterpiece about to be auctioned at the Beazley's auction house and Hilda Baum, the daughter of a Dutch collector who lost his life and paintings to the Nazis in 1943.

Atlanta judge Rachel Cutler's life is forever changed when her father, a man who surived the horrors of World War II, dies under strange circumstances, leaving behind clues as to the whereabouts of the Amber Room, an entire room forged of amber which was hidden by German troops invading the Soviet Union in 1944.