Nothing Ventured (william Warwick, #1)

In 1979, William Warwick, the son of Sir Julian Warwick, a distinguished criminal barrister (a type of trial lawyer in the British legal system), announces at the family dinner table that he intends to join the Metropolitan Police rather than follow his father to Oxford and study law. His mother, Marjorie, brokers a compromise: William will attend university and choose his own subject, and if he still wants to be a policeman after three years, Sir Julian will accept the decision. William studies art history at King's College London, developing a passion for Caravaggio and the Old Masters, then turns down a PhD to enroll at Hendon Police College.

William completes his training in late 1982 and begins probation at Lambeth police station under Constable Fred Yates, a veteran with 28 years on the force. Fred teaches William street policing guided by his motto: "Accept nothing, Believe no one, Challenge everything." Though Fred grew up in a Glasgow tenement and ran away to sea at 14, the two share a deep commitment to the job. During a station snooker final, William deliberately misses the winning shot to let Fred claim victory. Commander Jack Hawksby of Scotland Yard, watching from the crowd, is impressed by William's character and decides he wants William on his team. Tragedy follows on William and Fred's final patrol, when they confront a pimp attacking a young woman. William tackles the man but is stabbed; Fred leaps on the assailant and is killed. Sir Julian urges William to leave the force, but William resolves to continue.

William passes his detective's exam at the top of his class and reports to Hawksby at Scotland Yard. On the way, he notices that a painting in the Art and Antiques office, believed to be a stolen Rembrandt titled The Syndics of the Clothmakers' Guild and taken from the Fitzmolean Museum seven years earlier, is actually a copy: It lacks Rembrandt's characteristic initials, RvR. This observation ruins a six-month operation but demonstrates William's expertise, and Hawksby assigns him to the Art and Antiques unit led by Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Bruce Lamont and Detective Sergeant (DS) Jackie Roycroft.

The unit's primary target is Miles Faulkner, a criminal who steals valuable artworks and profits through insurance settlements arranged by his lawyer, Booth Watson, a Queen's Counsel (QC), or senior barrister. Faulkner orchestrated the Fitzmolean theft using men disguised as police officers who entered during a televised football match. Because the museum was underinsured, Booth Watson could not negotiate a settlement, and the painting's fate remained unknown. William handles smaller cases alongside the investigation, including recovering a phial of moon dust and tracking Cyril Amhurst, a forger selling books with fake Winston Churchill signatures.

William attends a lecture at the Fitzmolean, where he meets Beth Rainsford, a research assistant with a PhD from Cambridge, and is captivated by her knowledge of Dutch art. Their relationship deepens quickly. Beth suggests William visit the Fake Gallery in Notting Hill to find the copyist who forged the Rembrandt. Posing as customers, William and Beth identify the artist as Eddie Leigh, currently in Pentonville prison, who attended the Slade School of Art alongside Faulkner. When William and Lamont visit Leigh, the forger trembles at Faulkner's name but eventually responds to William's genuine admiration for his talent, breaking his silence to reveal a detail of his technique.

Meanwhile, William traces a mystery buyer purchasing old silver under false names to Kevin Carter, an engraver in Devon who is forging coins from a mold. William follows Carter to Rome, where Carter applies for a diving license to explore a shipwreck off Elba, intending to plant the forged coins on the seabed and "discover" them as treasure. Booth Watson's presence at the Italian Naval Office confirms Faulkner's involvement. On Carter's second trip, William disguises himself as a deckhand and watches Carter lower the coins to the seabed before "recovering" them the next morning. The scheme succeeds when the Italian naval liaison is compromised, the coins are validated as genuine, and Carter collects £300,000.

The team's attempt to intercept a Picasso theft, code-named Operation Blue Period, also fails. Leigh, knowing his phone calls are monitored, deliberately mentions the Picasso to lure police to the wrong location while Faulkner's gang steals a Renoir elsewhere. Jackie takes responsibility and is temporarily demoted. When William delivers the Rembrandt copy to Faulkner's country estate, Limpton Hall, he meets Christina Faulkner, Miles's wife, who casually mentions that their Monte Carlo drawing room contains a painting identical to The Syndics, implying the original is there. She also asks William to recommend a private detective, hinting at plans to leave her husband.

William later discovers that Beth's father, Arthur Rainsford, is serving a life sentence for murder. The team has known about Arthur but assumed Beth had told William. William waits outside Pentonville after one of Beth's visits, and when she emerges, he embraces her, declares his love, and vows to stand by her. Beth insists her father is innocent. Sir Julian visits Arthur, who explains that he arrived at his office to confront his business partner about embezzled funds, saw a man fleeing the building, and found his partner dead. Police arrived due to an anonymous tip. Inspector Stern, the lead detective, took Arthur's three-page statement, but only two pages were presented at trial; the missing middle page described the fleeing man. Sir Julian concludes Arthur is innocent, and William's sister Grace, a barrister who represents the underprivileged, agrees to serve as junior counsel.

Over Christmas, Christina packs Faulkner's Monte Carlo art collection, including the Rembrandt, onto his yacht bound for Southampton while Faulkner is in Melbourne. William flies to Nice and remains aboard the yacht on Hawksby's orders. When Faulkner learns what happened, he races home and arrives at Southampton as the crates are unloaded. He boards the yacht and switches labels on two crates, but William spots a faint impression where the original label was removed. The harbor master opens the suspicious crate, revealing the genuine Rembrandt, and Faulkner is arrested. Both crates are transported to the Fitzmolean, where an informal ceremony reveals the second contains Rubens's Christ's Descent from the Cross, a prized piece from Faulkner's private collection; Booth Watson argues successfully that it must be returned to Faulkner on the grounds that Christina, not his client, switched the labels.

Two trials proceed simultaneously. In Arthur's appeal, a forensic document analyst uses Electrostatic Detection Apparatus, a device that reveals writing indentations on paper, to prove a middle page was removed from Arthur's statement. The junior officer from the original investigation confirms the statement was three pages and reveals the anonymous caller was traced to a man whose daughter worked for the murder victim. Stern and the caller flee to Cyprus before they can be recalled. Lord Justice Arnott overturns Arthur's conviction and declares him innocent.

In Faulkner's trial, Booth Watson argues that Faulkner bought the Rembrandt from Italian criminals intending to return it and produces the copy to suggest Christina mistook a forgery for the original. The jury acquits Faulkner of theft but convicts him of receiving stolen goods. The judge sentences him to four years, then suspends the sentence after Faulkner donates Rubens's Christ's Descent from the Cross to the Fitzmolean, warning that any future offense will reinstate the full term.

At the Fitzmolean's unveiling ceremony, attended by Princess Anne, both the Rembrandt and the Rubens are revealed. Hawksby informs William he must leave Art and Antiques, since Jackie's demotion leaves room for only one detective constable, and take his sergeant's exam. Faulkner approaches William and whispers that if William visits his New York apartment, Faulkner can show him "the original," implying the donated Rubens is a copy. William is left deeply unsettled, realizing Faulkner may have outmaneuvered them once again.