The Potter's Grand Tour: The Man Who Wanted to Be Famous But Didn't Want to Be Remembered

Joanna Scott unravels the strange past of her missing great-grandfather Scott bases her work on letters, documents and diaries that she accidentally found and paints a refined picture of a lost time and a vanished man, which reads like an exciting detective story. In 1905, travel agent and antique collector Armand de Potter disappears in mysterious circumstances off the Greek coast. His body is never found and his wife Aimee has to handle his affairs alone. As Joanna pieces together his life, she realises that not everything was as he had made it seem. Interspersed with letters and diary fragments, the story swings back and forth in time and space and exposes a hidden life with a false identity, illegal antiques trade and fraudulent practices. As a young, poor Belgian, Armand de Potter had gone to try his luck in New York. He cheats and bluffs his way up until things start to get out of hand and he sees only one way out.