The Provenance of Lies

By Adam Marchetti

A professional thief and forger sets out to recover a stolen Andalusian astrolabe and clear his grandfather's name - only to discover the piece has already been replaced.

Someone else got there first. Someone who wanted him to take the blame.

For thirty-five years, Hassan Belhaj has carried the weight of a conviction he didn't earn. When his grandson Yannis - a man who has spent his career building convincing lies out of real material - sets out to steal back the truth along with the artifact, he expects a heist. What he finds instead is a forgery so precise it could only have been made by someone who understood the object as intimately as he did.

What begins as a theft becomes an investigation spanning Geneva, Tangier, and thirty-five years of buried paperwork - pulling in a journalist who asks the right questions without saying why, an auction house employee who can't stop noticing what doesn't add up, and a broker who discovers he's been used without ever being told why.

The Provenance of Lies is a slow-burn literary thriller about forgery, institutional power, and the difference between being certain of the truth and being able to prove it.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HJ4JBRKS
• ISBN13: 9798172381065
• Release Date: September 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 142 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"