Drawn to Trouble is a rollicking memoir that exposes the shrouded craft of art forgery, and reads like a tale from Dickens.  It is part hilarious account of a delinquent youth; part erudite discussion of forging techniques and art connoisseurship; part coming-of-age novel in which the hero is initiated into the cosmopolitan world of art dealing, with all its graces and chicanery.

Born into provincialism and poverty, the young Eric Hebborn showed a feisty streak, as well as artistic promise.  He burned down his grade school at the age of eight.  A compulsive draftsman even then, he went on to become first in his class at the Royal Academy of Arts.  The talented student was then invited to apprentice at a reputable atelier for restoring old masters; one day a client invited Hebborn to admire a Vandervelde, exclaiming over the beauty of this and that detail, and pointing to part of the canvas that needed restoring.  The canvas, however, was blank.  Thus began on of the great forgery careers of this century.

Hebborn's work fooled experts at Sotheby's, Christies, and many major museums of the world, including the National Gallery in Washington, the Morgan Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the British Museum.  He specialized in old masters, among them Rubens, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, and Reynolds, and mingled with the international elite of prestigious collectors and dealers.

Hebborn describes his escapades, and the secrets of his craft, with eloquence and warmhearted wit.  Drawn to Trouble delights with its anecdotes and revelations; it also seriously questions the honesty of many art dealers operating today, as well as the validity of the criteria used in the art world to determine what it real and what is fake.  In the end, reality itself is put to the test: If a work of art satisfies a refined eye, despite its parentage, is it not, asks Hebborn, real?  [from the jacket]