RAVE - The Forger's Spell, by Edward Dolnick

Another great history mystery book, sub-titled "A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century", this one, er, tells the true story of a fake Vermeer, painted by budding hoaxer Han van Meegeren and sold to one Hermann Goering.

Apparently, Van Meegeren was a lousy painter, but driven by jealousy and a desperate need for money, he set about working out how to create a painting (and in the end, a series of them) that, though painted in the 1940s would look, feel and smell like something painted 300 years earlier.

Reading this wouldn't enable you to forge an old master, but it shows you to what lengths you'd have to go if you tried. It's not just painting like Vermeer, but using 300 year old wooden frames, 300 year old canvas, paint and minerals, and choosing a subject that would fit into Vermeer's canon.

After doing all of that, you have to come up with a credible story about how and where you uncovered this "lost" work. And in Van Meegeren's case, because his initial success encouraged him to repeat the process with a number of additional "Vermeers", eventually led to his downfall.

Forgers vs Nazis, an exciting, true story.