This captivating tale alternates between the early days of World War II and the present. Alizée Benoit is an artist working in the WPA mural project. Among her co-artists are those who would later be famous like her lover Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollack, and Lee Krasner who all would further the Abstract Expressionist movement. Alizée is also dealing with trying to get members of her Jewish family out of Europe before they fall victims to Hitler's regime. She finds an artistic patron and political ally in Eleanor Roosevelt who Alizée hopes can help her. In contemporary time, Alizée's niece, Danielle, is working at Christie's auction house when she discovers fragments of a painting attached to the back of paintings by the Abstract Expressionists and investigates the possibility that they were done by the aunt who had disappeared from New York in the early 1940s. Her investigation leads her to museums, archives, and eventually to Europe to find the startling answer to the mystery of Alizée. I had trouble getting into this story at first and it took a few chapters to capture my interest. I'm glad I didn't give up on it.
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