First published 2012
Claire Roth scrapes by creating reproductions of famous paintings for an online retailer. When powerful gallery owner Aiden Markel approaches her with an offer, she sees her chance to escape obscurity. The deal seems straightforward: forge one of the Degas works stolen from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, and Markel will give her a solo exhibition at his prestigious gallery. Claire accepts, knowing the risks. But when the actual stolen Degas arrives at her studio, she realizes something is wrong. The painting that hung in the Gardner for a century may itself be a fake. Her investigation into the work's true history pulls her into a web of lies stretching back to the 1800s. As Claire digs deeper, she uncovers secrets that powerful people will kill to protect. The evidence she needs to save herself lies buried in the painting's past, where forgers and thieves have played a deadly game across three centuries.
Genres: art, historical-fiction, mystery, crime
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, investigation
Setting: Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Period: 1990
355 pages · Hardcover · Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Content warnings: murder