The Mona Lisa File

A diary found after a burglary to a French Restaurant in Notting Hill. The owner of the diary, an SS Major Eric Von Stroder, was a wanted war criminal. The diary told how he found the Mona Lisa hidden in the Archives of the Louvre Museum, at the end of the war. He brought in a Jewish Forger to copy the painting. He then placed the forgery in the archives where he found the real one, and headed for South America. Twenty years later MI6 agent Nicholas Steel follows the trail to Brazil. After helping the American CIA to smash a drugs cartel, he finds the painting. At the same time the French are holding a gun to the head of the British Government, over trade sanctions. The Prime Minister threatens to exhibit the painting in the British Museum. The French relent on the trade deal, but there is a twist in the tale.