The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau

by Kristin Harmel

First published 2025

Colette Marceau has spent decades stealing from the wealthy and giving to worthy causes, following the code her mother taught her. But everything traces back to 1942 Paris, when the Gestapo arrested her mother Annabel and her four-year-old sister Liliane vanished during the raid. Annabel died in custody. Liliane's body turned up in the Seine, but the priceless diamond bracelet hidden in her nightgown disappeared forever. Seventy years later, Colette spots that same bracelet in a Boston museum exhibition. Someone has kept it all these years, someone who might know what really happened the night her sister died. Colette begins tracking the bracelet's history, but she's not the only one with claims to those diamonds. As childhood figures resurface to demand the jewels, she must face memories she's buried for decades. The bracelet holds the key to her sister's murder, but finding the truth means reopening wounds that never fully healed.

Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, thriller, 21st-century

Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful

Tropes: family-drama, past-haunts-present, secrets

Setting: Paris, Boston, Seine River

Period: 1942, 2012

384 pages · Hardcover · Gallery Books

Content warnings: death

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