The Collector's Apprentice

B.A. Shapiro, whose previous books have sold over half a million copies, once again weaves historical and imagined characters to create a psychological art thriller, this time set in Paris and Philadelphia in the 1920s, where one fascinating woman must disguise her identity in order to reclaim it. It’s the summer of 1922, and Paulien Mertens finds herself in Paris broke, disowned, and on her own at nineteen. Everyone in Belgium, including her own family, believes she stole millions in a sophisticated confidence game perpetrated by her then-fiancée, George Everard. To protect herself from the law and the wrath of those who were conned, she creates a new identity, a Frenchwoman named Vivienne Gregsby, and sets out to prove her innocence—and exact revenge on George. The American multi-millionaire and art collector Edwin Bradley offers Vivienne the perfect job and soon she is caught up in the world of the post-impressionists and ex-patriots in Paris—including Gertrude Stein and Henri Matisse, with whom Vivienne becomes romantically entwined. As Vivienne travels between Paris and Philadelphia, where Bradley is building a museum, her life becomes even more complicated as George returns with unclear motives. And then she is arrested for Bradley’s murder. The bestselling author of The Art Forger and The Muralist has made the art history novel her own. In The Collector's Apprentice and Shapiro show us how so often we see only what we choose to see, both in art and in life. Once again B. A. Shapiro intertwines real history with fiction to tell a story about art and love that is exhilarating and unforgettable.