The Collector's Apprentice: A Novel

by B. A. Shapiro

Overview

Don't miss B. A. Shapiro's new novel, Metropolis, available now! 

"A clever and complex tale of art fraud, theft, scandal, murder, and revenge.” —Publishers Weekly

In this surprising, noirish page-turner, B. A. Shapiro once again takes readers into the world of art, glamour, and mystery. Accused of helping her fiancé steal her family’s fortune and her father’s art collection, Paulien Mertens has fled to France. To protect herself from the law and the wrath of those who lost everything, she has created a new identity. Paulien, aka Vivienne, takes a position working for an American art collector modeled after real-life eccentric museum founder Albert Barnes and quickly becomes caught up in the 1920s Paris of artists and expats, including post-Impressionist painter Henri Matisse and writer Gertrude Stein. From there, she sets out to recover her father’s art collection, prove her innocence, and exact revenge on her ex-fiancé. B. A. Shapiro has made the historical art thriller her own, and once again she gives us an unforgettable tale about what we see—and what we refuse to see.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616209803
Publisher:	Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication date:	06/11/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	391,642
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

B. A. Shapiro is the author of the award-winning New York Times bestseller The Art Forger and the bestselling The Muralist. She has taught sociology at Tufts University and creative writing at Northeastern University and lives in Boston with her husband, Dan, and their dog, Sagan. Her website is bashapirobooks.com.

This author is represented by the Hachette Speakers Bureau.

Editorial Reviews

Shapiro delivers a clever and complex tale of art fraud, theft, scandal, murder, and revenge. [Her] portrayal of the 1920s art scene in Paris and Philadelphia is vibrant, and is populated by figures like Alice B. Toklas and Thornton Wilder; readers will be swept away by this thoroughly rewarding novel.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Lush, atmospheric . . . Shapiro’s romantic and suspenseful art thriller will delight historical- and crime-fiction fans.”
—Booklist

“B.A. Shapiro is back with a platinum potion of art, love, and scandal, set against the big backdrop of Paris between the wars. If you can put The Collector’s Apprentice down, you’re made of stronger stuff than I am. I read it in one sumptuous sitting. This is a big story, from a big talent.” 
—Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean

“Dazzling and seductive, The Collector’s Apprentice is a tour de force—an exhilarating tale of shifting identities, desire, and intrigue set between 1920s Paris and Philadelphia. Shapiro is a master at melding historical and fictional characters to bring the past alive on the page, and in The Collector’s Apprentice she has forged an exquisite, multilayered story that maps the cogent and singular fire of a young woman’s ambition and the risks she will take for the sake of art.”   
—Dawn Tripp, bestselling author of Georgia

“I was engrossed in every twist and turn in this compulsively captivating page-turner, all the way until its astonishing denouement. Shapiro has done it again!”
—Thrity Umrigar, bestselling author of The Space Between Us

“A seamless blend of art history set against a wider historical backdrop.”
—Detroit Jewish News
 
“In prose lush with post-Impressionist art history, Shapiro's intriguing novel presents a heroine either evil or sympathetic—until the very end.”
—Shelf Awareness
 
“Shapiro packs her novel with intrigues and mysteries . . . Readers will . . . be charmed.”
—Chapter16.org
 
 “B. A. Shapiro delivers another dose of art history, wrapped tightly in a thriller.”
—New York Journal of Books
 
“Shapiro creates a complex, detailed, and historically-accurate world, and the lack of any straightforwardly heroic characters, along with a superb depiction of the glamorous 1920s Parisian art scene, makes this novel a standout among dark, twisting historical mysteries.”
—San Francisco Book Review

From the Publisher

08/06/2018
Shapiro (The Muralist and The Art Forger) delivers a clever and complex tale of art fraud, theft, scandal, murder, and revenge. Nineteen-year-old Paulien Mertens is alone and on the run in Paris in 1922, disowned by her Belgian family and hunted by the police, falsely accused of participating with George, her con artist fiancé, in a financial scam that ruined her father. She creates a new identity as art expert Vivienne Gregsby, landing a job working for wealthy Philadelphia art collector Edwin Bradley as a translator and secretary for his buying trips. In Paris, she becomes friends with Gertrude Stein and with Henri Matisse’s lover. All the while, she vows to prove her innocence and restore her father’s wealth, which she plans to do by obtaining possession of Bradley’s art collection, either by marrying him, becoming his heir, or staging a robbery. Vivienne has learned much about the art of the con from George, but when Bradley is suddenly murdered, derailing Vivienne’s plans and landing her in jail, she’ll need all her skills to set things right. Shapiro’s portrayal of the 1920s art scene in Paris and Philadelphia is vibrant, and is populated by figures like Alice B. Toklas and Thornton Wilder; readers will be swept away by this thoroughly rewarding novel. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

The author’s knowledge and love of art come through in this audiobook in which a con man’s deception kicks off the misadventures of Paulien Mertens. Narrator Xe Sands is challenged by a story that features characters from several countries, including real-life figures such as Gertrude Stein and Henri Matisse. Sands’s unique velvety voice melts words and phrases into each other. It works better for some characters than for others. She excels at projecting the emotion of dramatic scenes. Having narrated Shapiro’s two previous works, Sands seems well tuned to the author’s pace and style. Art-loving listeners who are willing to suspend disbelief will enjoy the ride. E.Q. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

The author’s knowledge and love of art come through in this audiobook in which a con man’s deception kicks off the misadventures of Paulien Mertens. Narrator Xe Sands is challenged by a story that features characters from several countries, including real-life figures such as Gertrude Stein and Henri Matisse. Sands’s unique velvety voice melts words and phrases into each other. It works better for some characters than for others. She excels at projecting the emotion of dramatic scenes. Having narrated Shapiro’s two previous works, Sands seems well tuned to the author’s pace and style. Art-loving listeners who are willing to suspend disbelief will enjoy the ride. E.Q. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2018 - AudioFile

2018-07-31

A woman with a shameful past, now in search of revenge and her family's forgiveness, finds herself assisting an irascible patron of the arts who is building one of the world's great private art collections. But will his paintings ever be hers?

Inspired by the story of Philadelphia's famed Barnes Foundation but fictionalized with a sizeable swirl of sensationalism, Shapiro's (The Muralist, 2015, etc.) latest art-world novel spans three timelines involving Belgian Paulien Mertens, who grew up in a home graced by a collection of valuable art, including seven modern works by groundbreaking postimpressionists including Cézanne and Matisse. As the novel opens in Paris in 1922, Paulien, aged 19, has been banished from her home and family, which has been bankrupted in a Ponzi scheme launched by her fiancé, George Everard. Flashing back periodically to 1920, the novel shows how innocent Paulien fell into George's trap; flashing forward to 1928, it reveals her reincarnated as Vivienne Gregsby, on trial for the murder of Dr. Edwin Bradley, a rich American chemist who was amassing a vast collection of postimpressionist art, including those seven Mertens paintings which Paulien dreams of restoring to her father. The central 1922 thread traces Paulien's rebirth as Vivenne, her developing involvement with Bradley, and her move to the U.S. and yearning to inherit his collection herself. But whether flirting—and sleeping—with Matisse, palling around with Gertrude Stein, reuniting dubiously with George, or plotting in secret against Bradley, Paulien is a character short on both conviction and charm. And as the tale enters a late, repetitive spiral of machinations, a credulity-stretching mood intensifies.

Less might have been more in this increasingly convoluted fusion of history and fantasy centered on an ambiguous central figure.

Kirkus Reviews