The Lost Masterpiece

Shapiro (Metropolis) returns with a historical novel about a fictional painting by Édouard Manet that was purloined during World War II. Nazis confiscated The Party on the Seine from descendants of Berthe Morisot, Manet’s lover and a legendary impressionist painter in her own right. Together with Manet, she broke taboos and battled against French strictures and solemnities in the 19th century. Now, more than a century after the painting’s creation, Tamara Rubin, a liberated woman living in Boston, enters its story. An agency dedicated to returning art stolen from Jewish families has pinpointed Tamara as the sole surviving heir to The Party on the Seine, to her unexpected joy. But a challenge from a Manet relative in Paris forces Tamara to seek legal help, setting the stage for lustful romance across the centuries, legal jousting across the Atlantic, and paranormal manifestations across the divide between living and dead.