Review
Kirkus Full Review : THE LOST PANEL BY MARK STEVEN HAMMOND ‧ RELEASE DATE: MARCH 9, 2026 A sprawling historical conspiracy thriller full of tantalizing twists and turns. In Hammond’s novel, secrets of the past and present collide as a driven art historian searches for a long-missing painting at the behest of a manipulative and reclusive billionaire. Sophia Rossi is an accomplished 31-year-old art historian who has a singular obsession (passed down from her father) with Jan van Eyck’s The Righteous Judges, a missing panel from the Ghent Altarpiece. Stolen by Arsène Goedertier in 1934, the work depicts mounted noblemen approaching the Lamb of God, and its very paint supposedly contains sacred powers. Sophia discovers hidden pages from a Nazi diary tying the missing panel to Hitler’s preoccupation with mystical relics: “There are maps, coded entries…I think it could lead us to The Righteous Judges.” Mr. W, the billionaire head of the W Foundation, bankrolls an international search with Sophia in the lead, giving her money and a team of codebreakers, AI specialists, and, despite the science-minded historian’s objections, a former CIA clairvoyant. Otto Kohn Jr., the sinister grandson of the diary’s owner, stalks the team’s every move, and Ryan Parte, a charming Los Angeles art teacher descended from Napoleon, may hold the keys to both the panel’s location and Sophia’s heart. Hammond grounds the novel in real history, adding drama with van Eyck’s rumored work as a spy and a depiction of Goedertier as a patriot and unlikely adventurer. The chapters that focus on the historical aspects of the story brim with intrigue, gravity, and urgency in ways that the present-day story rarely matches; while the past is driven by obsession, the present-day narrative is given over to operations, with repeated exposition, discussions of DNA sequencing, and characters who seldom develop beyond the function the plot requires. (Ryan is an exception, a likable and occasionally dorky figure who is both capable and relatable.) The novel’s most appealing element is the enthusiastic fusion of history and legend—Hammond deftly integrates real events into an elaborate web of religious mysteries and treats each scientific confirmation as another possible doorway into the sacred. A sprawling historical conspiracy thriller full of tantalizing twists and turns. Pub Date: March 9, 2026 ISBN: 9781665790086 Page Count: 376 Publisher: Archway Publishing Review Posted Online: yesterday Review Program: KIRKUS INDIE Categories: THRILLER | HISTORICAL THRILLER | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE
RECOMMENDED — The US Review of Books
The Lost Panel
by Mark Steven Hammond
Archway Publishing
Book review by Philip Zozzaro
“And so the story continues—not just of a masterpiece, but of the desire it provokes.”
This historical fiction novel possesses the all-consuming intrigue of a Dan Brown novel but with a little more edge. The story of a purloined art relic and the mystery surrounding it is a fascinating read from the outset. The enigmatic tone of the story is set from the beginning with the secretive actions of Jan Van Eyck, a painter who occasionally dabbled in espionage for the Duke of Burgundy. The author blends elements of reality (i.e., Nazi obsession with fine and rare works of art) with suspense and adventure in a narrative that features a charismatic protagonist in Sophia Rossi, who is intelligent, beautiful, and also a risk-taker. A globetrotting, high-stakes treasure hunt with more than a few nail-biting moments, this is a book that will capture the reader’s imagination.
Editorial Book Review:
By Maya Towers
Most art thrillers invent their mysteries from scratch. Mark Steven Hammond had the rare good sense to realize he didn’t need to. The 1934 theft of the Just Judges panel from the Ghent Altarpiece is one of history’s most genuinely unsolved crimes, complete with ransom notes, a dying confession, and cryptic clues that investigators have chased for nearly a century without resolution. That real unresolved wound at the center of art history gives The Lost Panel a gravitational pull that purely invented conspiracies rarely achieve.
Reading it produces the specific pleasure of a thriller that trusts its reader enough to be genuinely layered. The mystery Sophia Rossi stumbles into doesn’t announce itself loudly or simplify itself for convenience. It unfolds through monastic archives, pigment chemistry, cathedral blueprints, and the kind of detail that could only come from someone who did serious research and then had the storytelling instinct to make that research feel like momentum rather than homework. Hammond moves between the fifteenth century and the present with real confidence, and the two timelines illuminate each other in ways that keep the pages turning without ever feeling mechanical.
What gives the book its particular texture is the idea sitting beneath the surface chase: that beauty can be weaponized, that great art can become a container for secrets far older and more dangerous than the art itself. The antagonist, a reclusive billionaire who has spent decades assembling a private empire of stolen masterworks, is the kind of villain who is frightening precisely because he is entirely plausible. The obsession Hammond describes isn’t cartoon greed. It’s something more recognizable and therefore more unsettling.
For a debut novelist, the structural control here is impressive. The twists earn their reveals rather than simply arriving as surprises, and the ending lands with the satisfaction of something carefully constructed from the very first chapter.
Fans of intelligent, historically grounded thrillers have found their next obsession.