The Axel Files

The Axel Files: The Cherub & The Chariot

Written by Jerry Bader

Private Investigator Axel Webb is drawn into an intricate web of revolution, greed, and infidelity when his Russian nemesis, gangster Vladimir Bok, pressures Axel to find a missing Fabergé Egg: an exquisite example of Russian Imperial craftsmanship that disappeared sometime in the 1930s.

Wealthy Americans jumped at the chance to collect these works of art when successive Bolshevik regimes sold off these national treasures to fund their political and economic incompetence. Decades later, national pride demanded the repatriation of as many of the fifty-two eggs created as possible. Most of the eggs are accounted for, except six. One of the six has been dubbed The Cherub and The Chariot due to its design, described as a gold putto pulling a cart that holds a bejewelled, gold egg that opens to reveal a clock. The House of Fabergé created the egg for Tsar Alexander III to give to his wife, Maria Feodorovna, for Easter in 1885.

Axel is approached by Monty Brown, a former colleague he worked with, to find the egg. Monty is an art expert and conman by trade, but Axel ignores Monty's penchant for double-dealing because he's a friend. And because Bok threatened to kill Monty if he couldn't get Axel to help.

Bok isn't your average mobster; he's connected to the one man who controls everything in Russia: the other Vladimir. He's been given diplomatic status, so he's free to do whatever is necessary to find and purchase the missing eggs. Axel's expertise is finding lost or stolen works of art, so Bok needs his help, but Axel and Bok have too much history for Bok to contact Axel directly, so he uses Monty as his go-between.

Reluctantly, Axel takes on the case that leads him to Hollywood, an estate lawyer, a disgraced former movie star, and the great-granddaughter of the illegitimate daughter of the oil baron who the Kremlin ordered to turn the Imperial treasures into cash. But nothing Axel does is ever uncomplicated. During the hunt for the missing Easter egg, Axel discovers what he thinks is a missing Oscar plaque that could be the one rumoured to have been stolen during the 1938 Academy Awards. The discovery is somehow connected to the missing egg.

Success in the case of The Cherub and Chariot is an elusive objective. A fat fee doesn't balance the betrayal Axel feels when the truth is finally revealed.