* Publishers Weekly Best Books of Summer 2025 * Bookbub Best Non-Fiction Release of the Season
* MSNBC Afar Magazine 10 Best Books for the Summer Traveler * Newsday’s Top Must-Read Book for
Summer * Christian Science Monitor Best Book of May 2025 * Longlisted for the 2025 American
Library in Paris Book Award A riveting and stylish saga set in Paris during World War II The
Art Spy uncovers how an unlikely heroine infiltrated the Nazi leadership to save the world's
most treasured masterpieces. On August 25 1944 Rose Valland a woman of quiet daring found
herself in a desperate position. From the windows of her beloved Jeu de Paume museum where she
had worked and ultimately spied she could see the battle to liberate Paris thundering around
her. The Jeu de Paume co-opted by Nazi leadership was now the Germans’ final line of defense.
Would the museum curator be killed before she could tell the truth—a story that would mean
nothing less than saving humanity’s cultural inheritance? Based on troves of previously
undiscovered documents The Art Spy chronicles the brave actions of the key Resistance spy in
the heart of the Nazi’s art looting headquarters in the French capital. A veritable female
Monuments Man Valland has until now been written out of the annals despite bearing witness
to history’s largest art theft. While Hitler was amassing stolen art for his future
Führermuseum Valland his undercover adversary secretly worked to stop him. At every stage of
World War II Valland was front and center. She came face to face with Reichsmarschall Hermann
Göring passed crucial information to the Resistance network put herself deliberately in
harm’s way to protect the museum and her staff and faced death during the last hours of
Liberation Day. At the same time a young Free French soldier Alexandre Rosenberg was
fighting his way to Paris with the Allied forces battling to liberate France. Alexandre's
father was the exclusive art dealer for Picasso Matisse George Braque and Fernand Léger. The
Nazis had taken everything from their family—their art collection their nationality their
gallery and their home in Paris. Vivid and atmospheric The Art Spy moves from the glittering
days of pre-War Paris home to geniuses of modern culture including Picasso Josephine Baker
Coco Chanel Le Corbusier and Frida Kahlo through the tension-riddled cities and resorts of
Europe on the eve of war to the harrowing years of the Nazi occupation of France when brave
people such as Valland and Rosenberg risked everything to fight monstrous evil. In the spirit
of Hidden Figures with the sweeping narrative of The Rape of Europa and the depth of The
Resistance Quartet The Art Spy is an extraordinary tale of a female hero whose courage and
tenacity in a time of violence and terror is an inspiration for us all.
