| Vendor | |
|---|---|
|
Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik |
| Original language | |
| English | |
| Categories | |
| Weblink | |
| http://www.annaporter.ca | |
THE APPRAISAL
A suspenseful novel that invites comparison with the political thrillers of Alan Furst and Joseph Kanon.
Attila, a reluctantly retired Hungarian policeman, has been hired as a private detective to follow a woman newly arrived in Budapest. Helena Marsh seems to have an interest in buying an old painting, but it turns out she is a woman of many disguises (literally). She is an expert on fifteenth and sixteenth century artists, but also a self-defense expert with a penchant both for attracting and dealing with trouble.
She has a history of tracking down paintings acquired without the owner's consent and is in Budapest to acquire a valuable Titian that is being privately auctioned. It once belonged to the family of her client, a Hungarian-Canadian named Geza Marton, and Marton wants to know whether the current owner, Janos Krestin, is a man he had known in Vorkuta, one of the most terrible mines in the Soviet Gulag. Marton also wants the painting back.
Helena is adept at dealing with the Ukrainian mafia, Russian and Romanian mobsters, families of former Nazis and just regular art robbers. She will need all these skills as the story develops. And when Krestin is murdered, she will need her powers of detection too.
As Attila and Helena pursue their separate investigations, many secrets from the past emerge. The background of the rediscovered Titian does indeed lead them back to the grim years of 1945-47 when Hungarians were taken off the streets and shipped to the Gulag.
The Appraisal is as much about the new Eastern Europe, with its complex political, social and historical issues, as it is about finding a priceless painting. It's also, eventually, an unlikely love story, as Attila and Helena are drawn together by the whirlwind of events.
ANNA PORTER was born in Budapest, but has spent most of her adult life in Canada, where she is a celebrated publisher and author. Her most recent books are Buying a Better World: George Soros and Billionaire Philanthropy; The Ghosts of Europe, winner of the Shaughnessey Cohen Prize for Political Writing; Kasztner's Train: The True Story of Rezso Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust, winner of the 2007 Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Award and of the Jewish Book Award for Non-Fiction. Her previous novels were published in the US and the UK as well as in Canada and in several languages such as Turkish, Danish and Japanese.
She has a history of tracking down paintings acquired without the owner's consent and is in Budapest to acquire a valuable Titian that is being privately auctioned. It once belonged to the family of her client, a Hungarian-Canadian named Geza Marton, and Marton wants to know whether the current owner, Janos Krestin, is a man he had known in Vorkuta, one of the most terrible mines in the Soviet Gulag. Marton also wants the painting back.
Helena is adept at dealing with the Ukrainian mafia, Russian and Romanian mobsters, families of former Nazis and just regular art robbers. She will need all these skills as the story develops. And when Krestin is murdered, she will need her powers of detection too.
As Attila and Helena pursue their separate investigations, many secrets from the past emerge. The background of the rediscovered Titian does indeed lead them back to the grim years of 1945-47 when Hungarians were taken off the streets and shipped to the Gulag.
The Appraisal is as much about the new Eastern Europe, with its complex political, social and historical issues, as it is about finding a priceless painting. It's also, eventually, an unlikely love story, as Attila and Helena are drawn together by the whirlwind of events.
ANNA PORTER was born in Budapest, but has spent most of her adult life in Canada, where she is a celebrated publisher and author. Her most recent books are Buying a Better World: George Soros and Billionaire Philanthropy; The Ghosts of Europe, winner of the Shaughnessey Cohen Prize for Political Writing; Kasztner's Train: The True Story of Rezso Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust, winner of the 2007 Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Award and of the Jewish Book Award for Non-Fiction. Her previous novels were published in the US and the UK as well as in Canada and in several languages such as Turkish, Danish and Japanese.
| Available products |
|---|
|
Book
Published by ECW |