The art spy : the extraordinary untold tale of WWII resistance hero Rose Valland / Michelle Young.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Journalist Young (Secret New York) recaps the exploits of French Resistance hero Rose Valland in this thrilling saga. Valland (1898--1980) was a curator at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris when the Nazis invaded France, occupied the museum, and began using it as a sorting center for thousands of pieces of stolen art from across Europe. In Young's vivid telling, a wily Valland made herself appear as nonthreatening and essential as possible, retaining her position in the museum for years while keeping meticulous secret records of the provenance and destination of every piece of art. Her notes made possible the recovery of many artworks after the war (by Valland herself in many cases, as she was commissioned by the U.S. Army to hunt them down). Young's dramatic recreation of Valland's war years depicts her as a cool operator: at one point, she was banned from carrying a notebook and had to commit her notes to memory--no easy task when surrounded by paranoid Nazis, who would routinely lash out, accusing her of "everything sabotage and theft" to "signaling to the enemy" (all of which, Young notes, were true). Repeatedly sacked, Valland "talked her way back in" every time by calmly explaining she was a nobody--a mere lowly museum employee (when in reality she was one of the top art historians in France). Readers will relish this riveting tale of a clever war hero playing the long game against bumbling fascists. (May)

Booklist Review

It would have been easy to underestimate art historian Rose Valland. While overseeing the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris, she was modestly attired, calm, cool, and collected, decorous camouflage she used to powerful effect as she faced down art-looting Nazis. Valland was already battle-tested, having risen from humble beginnings to excel academically, only to be stymied by entrenched misogyny while keeping secret her intimate relationship with Joyce Heer, a multilingual Brit working for the U.S. Embassy. Young recounts Valland's brilliance, courage, and sangfroid in enthralling detail as she chronicles her daring work to save the museum's treasures and her shrewd spying for the Resistance. By pairing Valland's risky efforts with the besieged lives of the Jewish gallery owner Paul Rosenberg and his family, Young captures the full brunt of the Nazis' art crimes. Valland was initially celebrated for her unshakable commitment to preserving her country's culture, her epic sacrifices, and her ongoing valor when she became a highly decorated, postwar army officer and tracked down stolen art in Germany. But when she published the first of two planned memoirs, those intent on concealing France's collusion with the Nazis made sure she was silenced and forgotten. But now, like Valland's zealous rescue of stolen masterpieces, Young vibrantly restores a hidden treasure to the pantheon of WWII heroes.

Kirkus Book Review

The Nazis' systematic looting of art treasures in occupied France and some who battled against it. The book focuses on Rose Valland, a curator at the Jeu de Paume museum who remained at her post throughout World War II to document the hundreds of thousands of artworks seized by the Nazis (principally but not exclusively belonging to French Jews), but substantial secondary passages follow the odysseys of art dealer Paul Rosenberg and his son Alexandre. U.S. Army lieutenant James Rorimer makes a late entrance to avail himself of Valland's meticulous record-keeping to track looted art into Germany in the waning days of the war and save it from destruction by the vengeful Nazis. Journalist and architecture professor Young does a reasonable job of blending these stories into a compelling narrative. It is occasionally jarring, however, to be yanked from the repulsive spectacle of opportunistic art dealers and greedy Nazi officials (Hermann Göring first among them) picking through priceless art collections into the story of the Rosenberg family's circuitous flight from France to the United States and Alexandre's enlistment with the Free French Forces that liberated Paris in 1944. Granted, Paul Rosenberg's unparalleled collection of modern art was one of the Nazis' principal targets, but detailing his anxieties about Alexandre and the young man's military service detracts from the remarkable story of Valland, a formidable woman who managed to convince the Germans she was a nondescript bureaucrat who could be useful to them, all the while eavesdropping on their conversations (they didn't know she spoke German) and covertly writing down every scrap of information she could glean from coded shipping labels or carbon copies fished from trash cans. Young is rightly indignant that Valland's reputation was later smeared by people anxious to cover up their participation in the looting, most notably German art historian Bruno Lohse, who identified targets for Göring but managed to rehabilitate himself after the war. Vivid popular history spotlighting a neglected heroine. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.