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Janet Pywell
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Golden Icon: Facing one final shot - a thrilling page turner (A Mikky dos Santos Thriller) Kindle Edition

by Janet Pywell (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 327 ratings
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In the PREQUEL to the MIKKY DOS SANTOS THRILLERS – Josephine Lavelle, a once-famous opera singer who became an international outcast, has one last opportunity to resurrect her career.

She was born to sing Puccini’s Tosca and is determined to earn the right to perform again on the world’s most prestigious and celebrated stages. NOTHING must detract from her last chance.
But her fight for the future she craves is derailed when her ex-husband embroils her in a cynical blackmail plot. She is forced to take possession of a solid gold icon, part of a secret hoard of art treasures stolen by the Nazis - that dangerous men are prepared to kill for.
As well as determining the fate of the Golden Icon, Josephine must come to terms with her past, a thirty-year old secret, and fight for her own life.
If only her choices were simple...

A gripping, page turning crime thriller. You will be hooked on the secrets of this surprising protagonist.

Set in Lake Como (Italy), Dublin (Ireland) and Munich (Germany) – this international crime thriller will leaving you rooting for this unusual and feisty protagonist until the twist at the very end.

For fans of female protagonists and readers of crime thrillers in the style of Donna Leon, Estelle Ryan, Laura Morelli, CJ Lyons and Carmen Armato.

★★★★★ "I rarely give a book 5 Stars but Golden Icon deserves the highest. A clever and totally original story that kept me reading far into the evening when I had other things to do. Easy reading so if you start get ready to be pulled in to an intimate story you will find hard to put down."

★★★★★ "This is a rich, literate, complex examination of who owns art and how it is valued. It is also a thriller, with several villains and unexpected dangers."

★★★★★ "This is a fabulous book especially for those who love a long book to read. The storyline is so totally different to what I normally read but it had me up at all hours reading further & further to find out the ending."

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  1. Print length
    288 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    September 10, 2013
  5. File size
    11752 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"I love this book. Well written with little pieces of detail without losing the flow. It kept me interested all the way through. Onto the next book Masterpiece now."
"The characters just got more interesting as the storyline progressed. Irish family superstitions juxtaposed with Italian cultures create a book to appeal to anyone with an interesting imagination."
"With believable characters that bring alive the plot, the strands of this story and pulled together nicely so that it made it an enjoyable read."
"Really enjoyed this book although I don't like opera! Got me hooked very early on, and it was fast paced."
" This book is beautifully detailed and very well researched. It is also a fascinating read about Opera and Art through out Europe. Full of great twist and very strong characters. A real page turner."
"That I was unsure of how this story would resolve, how much moral jeopardy could be heaped on this woman, is testament to the skills of the author. I didn't know what to expect, and at times the tension was unbearable. Great."
"The characters just got more interesting as the storyline progressed. Irish family superstitions juxtaposed with Italian cultures create a book to appeal to anyone with an interesting imagination."
"If you're looking for a story that is instantly engrossing and captivating, this debut novel by Janet Pywell ticks all the boxes. Don't be fooled by the sedate opening scenes - this little nugget packs a wallop that has a few surprising twists and turns to make you want to jump into the pages and lend a hand to the harassed heroine."

About the Author

Janet Pywell, writes gripping international mystery and crime thriller novels that will keep you quickly turning the pages.In Janet's international crime thriller series - art forger, artist and photographer Mikky dos Santos is a uniquely lovable female: a tough, tattooed, yet vulnerable heroine who will steal your heart. Each book is a stand-alone exciting action-adventure novel, set in different countries/ locations.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00F45GQE0
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Richmond Heights Publishing; 1st edition (September 10, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 10, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 11752 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 327 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Janet Pywell

Janet Pywell

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Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Author Janet Pywell’s storytelling is as mesmerizing and complex as her characters.

Janet writes gripping crime thriller novels that will keep you quickly turning the pages. The Mikky dos Santos series are set in different locations throughout Europe while the Ronda George series are set in unusual properties in the UK.

After the Covid pandemic Janet published the first book in the Westbay Romance Series, Someone Else’s Dream — a heart-warming, uplifting, feel-good novel about courage, integrity and friendship.

The other novels in the series will also leave you tingling with emotion.

Janet gained an MA in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University, Belfast. She has a background in travel and tourism and she writes using her knowledge of foreign places gained from living abroad and travelling extensively.

Janet currently lives on the Kent coast.

Visit Janetpywellauthor to subscribe to her crime and romance newsletter.

You can find Janet across all social media platforms and on Goodreads, Bookbub and TikTok.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
327 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

J. S. Klos
5.0 out of 5 stars Art History
Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2023
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I kept checking names and art works because the story is so interesting, and there are many pieces of art mentioned. There is a lot of real history in this book. It also offers a taut story with many plots twists. An engrossing read.
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Patricia
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting plot
Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2019
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This is a must read prequel before the culture crime series. Step into the world of divas and those who make up their world. The descriptions are vivid, the character development is careful, including first person emotional insight. The settings are authentic. Well worth reading.
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bex
3.0 out of 5 stars 3 star read
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2019
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Decent thriller. I had trouble caring about the MC, which made it harder for me to connect with the book. And I really don't like hooky endings. I'm sure others will like it more.
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loril19
5.0 out of 5 stars Another great hit!
Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2019
Verified Purchase
Does Pywell know how to tell a great story? You bet she does and this one makes the grade. Another great read with more to come I'm sure. As all her books so far this one continues to provide well developed story line, characters, and great detail all along the way. She keeps the reader holding on and flipping pages til the wee hours. I recommend you wait til the weekend of you may have to call in sick!
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Jodi Bennett
4.0 out of 5 stars It draws you in and keeps you there
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2019
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This was a really good read. The descriptions are so clear you really feel like you are there. I found it difficult to like Josephine but still found myself rooting for her anyway. A washed up opera star and she has one last chance to get her career back, then her ex- husband begins blackmailing her and things really derail from there. I enjoyed the drama of the characters and they way they played off each other.
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2018
Verified Purchase
I rarely give a book 5 Stars but Golden Icon deserves the highest. A clever and totally original story that kept me reading far into the evening when I had other things to do. Easy reading so if you start get ready to be pulled in to an intimate story you will find hard to put down
One person found this helpful
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Linda
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2017
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Theme story was okay but it wasn't exciting enough to be great. Josephine was hung up on herself and wasn't an impressive character. Too many Italian words, places, and phrases that didn't work for me.
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DarcyYa
3.0 out of 5 stars Woman on goodwill mission
Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2018
Verified Purchase
Golden Icon by Janet Pywell was gifted to me for an honest review. The book is a little slow but a page turner. I wanted more action. I liked the book because it's about a woman who is on a goodwill mission and has a life on the side of that. It just needed more excitement. Good book.
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Top reviews from other countries

Mike McGlade
5.0 out of 5 stars Opera Divas and Stolen Nazi War Hoards
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 7, 2013
Verified Purchase
Josephine Lavelle, the heroine of The Golden Icon, is that rare thing: a fighter. She's unwilling to let her once promising operatic career fade away. She wants it back. Wants to fight for it.

But the world of opera isn't her biggest problem. It's merely the hors d'oeuvre.

Josephine is forced by her ex-husband to retrieve a piece of art he has in storage in Germany. All she has to do is bring it to him and he'll not release what he knows about her past to the press, and she can go on with her dream of playing Tosca in a new production. What she doesn't realize is that the artwork she's sent to collect is what some dangerous people have been searching for for a long time, and they're closing in on her.

Josephine is such a great character, both vulnerable and strong, wounded yet seeking redemption. And her nightmare journey through Europe and the arts world is a twisting, heaving flight. The author has taken the seemingly obtuse world of opera divas and exploded it, shattered it with one confident, swift stroke. Josephine is on her own, no one to turn to, and everyone she once knew is now a potential threat - because she now has this priceless artwork of a golden icon of the Madonna, she sees those around her get injured , picked off and murdered. This is a story of one woman's plight to find herself, find the courage to take a chance, risk it all, and make amends for past mistakes.

That I was unsure of how this story would resolve, how much moral jeopardy could be heaped on this woman, is testament to the skills of the author. I didn't know what to expect, and at times the tension was unbearable. Great.

This is an impressive crime thriller by a debut author.
5 people found this helpful
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Godiva 2000
4.0 out of 5 stars Culture crime? Unusual but enjoyable juxtaposition.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 3, 2019
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This book is described as a prequel to 'Masterpiece', but is actually the back story of one of the characters in that book, an opera singer, Josephine Lavelle, who has somewhat fallen from grace.
The storyline very much revolves around Josephine's attempt to restart her career by singing Tosca at the opening of a new opera house, but then expands into an international art crime tale.
The pace of the book is rather variable, at times the story really rolls along at an exciting pace, but then there are periods where Josephine is reflecting on her past where things slow down significantly, there are other times when the author suddenly introduces some very detailed descriptions of places, people or even emotions, which are well written, but for me they sometimes seem to be at inappropriate points of the story, and rather break up the flow of the writing.
I have absolutely no knowledge of opera or indeed of Tosca, and I think that this hindered my enjoyment of this book.
The storyline is definitely original and the characters are very well fleshed out, but I did find the relationships rather confusing, as several of them are actually never explained, perhaps the reader is supposed to imply the nature of them, but I found this difficult.
Overall, despite the comments above, I did mostly enjoy the book, but I think that it would have benefitted from some editing.
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FraserD
3.0 out of 5 stars First person narrative and far too slow for me
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 4, 2019
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First off, I really do not like stories written in first person, and this one is particularly bad for it. It has sections where sentence after sentence that starts with "I am..." "I was..." "I..." that follow one right after the other. I find use of first person removes any tension since the writer (I) must survive to write the story! However, for me, the pace really dragged, especially for about the first third, and there were whole tracts of self-indulgent reminiscences and postulations that had no effect on the narrative other than to pad out the story and I found this boring. I also read a part of the story where the author describes the design of the theatre as offering a "three hundred and sixty-five degree view" and also (it being a transparent dome) looked out towards the mountains! It's a dome!
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Tim Heath
5.0 out of 5 stars An operatic read in every sense of the word! Pick up and start reading this book today!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 18, 2018
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The rating for a book, for me, has a large element of 'was it readable, was it believable, was it entertaining?' This is certainly in that bracket. An easy 5-stars.

It's my first book by this author, her debut novel I believe, and based on what I've read, I'll be back. The future books can only be even better. In my version, there were a few errors, but these might well have been corrected by now, and I'll mention to the author just in case they haven't, not that in any way they detracted from the enjoyment.

I found some dialogue a little forced, but this is all very subjective, and sometimes I could guess what was happening. That said, this is well written. I loved the sights, sounds and flavours of Italy.

The opera features highly...the book itself an operatic production, in fitting with the main character.

Well done Janet! Great job. If you want to find a book you can pick up and keep reading, I would recommend this one highly!
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Mrs. F. M. Pinsker
4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 20, 2019
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The Golden Icon
by Janet Pywell

There were a few things that irritated me about this book at the beginning, mistypes, missing letters, use of "draw" instead of Drawer and over use of the description of "okra coloured" .These things jarred me which was a shame as I love good language and don't want to be distracted by mistakes. Despite the not so great beginning I got into the story and then really got to enjoy it. Sometimes things are repeated too much but the story is good and gripping, you really want to know what happens. Some descriptions re very beautiful and paint pictures in your head. Good twists in plot too. Would I read more by this author? Yes I definitely would!
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