During the 1940's Paul Vasseur is the owner of an art gallery in Paris. His personal collection of fine art includes paintings by Picasso, Braque, Rousseau, and others. Before the Germans can lock down Paris, Paul and his wife, Hanna, secretly send their young daughter, Sylvie, to live with Paul's friend, Daniel Courtney, and his family in Ireland. Paul and Hanna try in vain to escape to safety, but they are caught and sent to a German concentration camp.
Sylvie grows up with Daniel’s sons, Nicholas and Peter, and Daniel’s wife, Nora. She longs to go to college and study art, but is not allowed to do so. Instead, Daniel says there are no funds for art school and enrolls Sylvie in secretarial courses, which she dislikes intensely. Unfortunately, she becomes pregnant, and her unborn child’s father does not offer to marry her. She marries a close friend, and life is terribly hard for the threesome.
Sometime later, Sylvie befriends Jennifer and Maxwell Ambrose, and this couple nurtures her as a young artist and helps her art career along. She is just beginning to enjoy both her personal and professional life when she dies suddenly in a drowning accident.
In the 1980s, Nicholas Courtney hires Claire Howard, a young art historian, to catalog Sylvie’s works of art. He also employs his nephew, Sam, to help Claire. While Claire discovers just how talented Sylvie was, she also uncovers family secrets that will put her life in grave danger.
In this debut novel by Derville Murphy, the author has written a compelling novel about the art world during and after World War II. The novel is written in alternating time periods, moving between the war, the 1960s, and the 1980s and between the places of Paris and Ireland. There are luxurious descriptions of the countryside in Ireland and bustling scenes of Paris.
Although the novel is billed as a “historical thriller”, it does not read like a thriller. It feels more to like a historical mystery, instead. The action is well-paced, and there are a few surprising moments. Some of the dialogue between the characters seems stilted and forced and goes on far too long in places. I would have liked to know more about Paul and Hanna lives and Paul’s relationships with the artists he dealt with. The plot contains some heavy themes—mental illness, womanizing, abuse, and death, among others, which are worked deftly into the story.
Is it easy to see how the author has drawn on her experiences as an art consultant and artist in writing her first novel. Hand The Art Collector’s Daughter to art lovers and readers who enjoy mysteries and historical fiction. I recommend it for public libraries and give it four out of five fleur de lis!
Thank you to Book Sirens and Poolbeg Press for allowing me to read and review this book.
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