Woman on fire A novel

Barr's latest (after The Unbreakables, 2019) invites readers into the seductive art scene, where one painting may cost a young journalist her life. "Woman on Fire" is the last known painting of Ernst Engel, a German artist labeled as degenerate by Hitler and later killed by the Nazis. Featuring a stunning blonde engulfed in color, the painting has captivated the art world ever since it disappeared during World War II. When a cache of Nazi-stolen artwork disappears after the robbery and murder of a former Nazi sympathizer, many wonder if "Woman on Fire" had been among the pieces. One of those wondering is Ellis Baum, a famous shoe designer who has ties to the painting that he's been keeping secret for decades. Ellis hires journalists Dan Mansfield and Jules Roth to investigate the murder, hoping it will lead them to the painting. But someone else wants the painting and will kill to keep it out of anyone else's hands. Woman on Fire is a sharp, propulsive page-turner that will keep readers in suspense.

Ambitious fledgling reporter Jules Roth, the heroine of this masterly, multifaceted thriller from Barr (The Unbreakables), lands a job working for her personal hero, investigative journalist Dan Mansfield, who appreciates the young woman's moxie. He invites her to join his small team, which is attempting to track down Woman on Fire, the last work of German Expressionist Ernst Engel, who was murdered in 1939. Dan is pursuing the painting on behalf of his good friend, famed shoe designer Ellis Baum, whose mother posed for the masterpiece. Young Ellis had seen the painting being taken from his home by a Nazi officer, and now, as he's nearing death, longs for it to be returned to his family. Jules and the team aren't the only ones lusting after the elusive picture, which is now worth millions. Ruthless Margaux de Laurent, considered the most important gallerist in the world, will stop at nothing to possess it. The action leaps between art capitals in the United States and Europe, intermingling the action-packed present day with thrilling episodes from the 1930s and 1940s that reveal Woman on Fire's turbulent history. Barr's vigorous prose complements her fully realized characters. Readers will be gripped from start to finish. Agent: Stephanie Abou, Massie & McQuilkin. (Mar.)

Ambitious young journalist Jules Roth is thrilled to land a job with leading investigative reporter Dan Mansfield but surprised by her first assignment: he needs her to locate celebrated Expressionist artist Ernst Engel's Woman on Fire, stolen by the Nazis 75 years ago. Alas, sly gallerist Margaux de Laurent wants to find the painting, too. From the author of IPPY Award winner Fugitive Colors, optioned for film; with a 150,000-copy paperback and 25,000-copy hardcover first printing.

Barr's second novel about Nazis and art, following Fugitive Colors (2013), features an epic struggle to reclaim one spectacular purloined painting. Carl Geisler, son of Nazi art thief Helmuth Geisler, is hoarding an inherited fortune of contraband art when he's murdered by New York art impresario Margaux de Laurent. Margaux needs Carl's cache of priceless masterpieces--the cream of French impressionism and German expressionism--to sell on the dark web. Only thus can she save her own heritage, De Laurent Galleries, from financial ruin. Dan Mansfield, the old-school crusading editor of a Chicago newspaper, is called upon by an old friend to investigate a lost painting. Enter Jules Roth, a 24-year-old journalism graduate, who hero-worships Dan. The old friend, octogenarian fashion icon Ellis Baum, designer of high-end stilettos, never divulged the wartime horrors preceding his arrival in America as a 13-year-old orphan. His mother, Anika, a German beauty queen who was the mistress of his father, Jewish banker Arno Baum, posed for Woman on Fire, the final work of Ernst Engel, a groundbreaking German expressionist executed by Hitler's art police. Ever since Helmuth Geisler brutally dispatched Anika, Ellis has been searching for her portrait. But Woman on Fire is among Margaux's Geisler spoils, and she's keeping it to honor her grandfather, Charles de Laurent. A French Jewish art dealer, Charles saved many masterworks from the Nazis before being forced to sell Woman on Fire to Geisler. Stereotypes abound. Jules and her sidekick, recovered addict and art-world phenomenon Adam Chase, are stunning. Margaux, archvillain, is beautiful in a Dorian Gray sort of way, her inner rot concealed in the attic of her id. Margaux also weaponizes words: "I don't do delicate." She, Ellis, and Dan command the reader's interest due to their desperate pursuit of their obsessions. That interest flags whenever the torch is passed to the more decorative, blander characters. This novel does not do subtle. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.