B.A. Shapiro

From bestselling author B. A. Shapiro, a gripping novel that follows six mysterious characters whose lives intersect when a tragedy occurs at the storage facility where they all rent units.   In Metropolis we meet six unforgettable characters who never would have met if not for their rental units at Metropolis Storage Warehouse. When a harrowing accident—or is it an accident?—occurs in the building, each character is forced to consider their life circumstances: Serge, a mentally unstable but brilliant street photographer who lives in his unit; Zach, the storage facility owner and an ex-drug dealer, who purchases Serge’s undeveloped photographs and discovers they contain clues to the mysterious accident. Marta, an undocumented immigrant hiding from ICE in her unit. Liddy, an abused wife and mother, who is responsible for the accident, unless she intended it; Jason, a lawyer who has left his big firm and now practices out of his unit; and Rose, the office manager who takes kickbacks to let people live in the facility and has her own disintegrating family to deal with. The characters have different backgrounds: they are different races and religions; they’re young, and they’re not so young; they are rich, poor, and somewhere in the middle. As they dip in and out of each other’s stories and struggle to salvage their own lives—as well as discover the truth behind the accident—Metropolis traces how their interlocking narratives connect them and tear them apart. B.A. Shapiro has wrapped an ensemble cast around a mystery that thematically explores the myth of “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps” in current day America.  

It’s the summer of 1922, and nineteen-year-old Paulien Mertens finds herself in Paris—broke, disowned, and completely alone. Everyone in Belgium, including her own family, believes she stole millions in a sophisticated con game perpetrated by her then-fiancé, George Everard. To protect herself from the law and the wrath of those who lost everything, she creates a new identity, a Frenchwoman named Vivienne Gregsby, and sets out to recover her father’s art collection, prove her innocence—and exact revenge on George.   When the eccentric and wealthy American art collector Edwin Bradley offers Vivienne the perfect job, she is soon caught up in the Parisian world of post-Impressionists and expatriates—including Gertrude Stein and Henri Matisse, with whom Vivienne becomes romantically entwined. As she travels between Paris and Philadelphia, where Bradley is building an art museum, her life becomes even more complicated: George returns with unclear motives . . . and then Vivienne is arrested for Bradley’s murder.   B. A. Shapiro has made the historical art thriller her own. In The Collector’s Apprentice, she gives us an unforgettable tale about the lengths to which people will go for their obsession, whether it be art, money, love, or vengeance.  

A fascinating art history novel from New York Times bestselling author of The Art Forger, B.A. Shapiro, whose new mystery follows 19th-century Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot and her 21st-century great-great-great granddaughter, who inherits a Nazi-looted Èdouard Manet painting; for fans of Sarah Dunant, Elizabeth Kostova, Robin Oliveira, and Nancy Horan. Stretching from the late-nineteenth century to the present day, The Lost Masterpiece is wrapped around an enigmatic and powerful painting, Party on the Seine. Stolen by the Nazis. Believed to be destroyed for almost a century. Possibly haunted by the anguished spirit of Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot. Survivor of a flood, an earthquake and a fire when all the other artworks around it were destroyed. What secrets does it hold? What power? When Tamara Rubin inherits the valuable Party on the Seine, created by the famous ancestor she never knew she had—Edouard Manet—she also inherits a deep history and mystery. As the painting begins to metamorphose into darker and more terrifying versions of itself, Tamara's life is upended. Who was her great-great-great-great-grandmother Berthe Morisot? What wounds, riddles and resentments plagued her, and what lengths will the spirit of Berthe go in order to enact her revenge?The Lost Masterpiece is story of love, adultery, betrayal, longing, family secrets, and the birth of Impressionism. Set partly in Paris in the late 1800s, the novel explores the life of a female artist when it was completely improper for a woman to paint seriously. Even as Berthe Morisot socialized and shared a studio with Manet, Degas, Renoir, and others, she carried on a passionate affair with Édouard Manet. Shapiro brings Berthe’s world to life, as she traces her work through generations of her descendants and introduces us to a painter as brilliant and original as her male counterparts. Across 150 years of triumphs, struggles, passions, animosities and malevolence, Shapiro does what she always does so she shows us how art can open up our senses and enlarge our world.  

From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Art Forger comes a thrilling new novel of art, history, love, and politics that traces the life and mysterious disappearance of a brilliant young artist on the eve of World War II. Alizée Benoit, an American painter working for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), vanishes in New York City in 1940 amid personal and political turmoil. No one knows what happened to her. Not her Jewish family living in German-occupied France. Not her artistic patron and political compatriot, Eleanor Roosevelt. Not her close-knit group of friends, including Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Lee Krasner. And, some seventy years later, not her great-niece, Danielle Abrams, who while working at Christie’s auction house uncovers enigmatic paintings hidden behind recently found works by those now famous Abstract Expressionist artists. Do they hold answers to the questions surrounding her missing aunt? Entwining the lives of both historical and fictional characters, and moving between the past and the present, The Muralist plunges readers into the divisiveness of prewar politics and the largely forgotten plight of European refugees refused entrance to the United States. It captures both the inner workings of today’s New York art scene and the beginnings of the vibrant and quintessentially American school of Abstract Expressionism. B.A. Shapiro is a master at telling a gripping story while exploring provocative themes. In Alizée and Danielle she has created two unforgettable women, artists both, who compel us to ask, What happens when luminous talent collides with inexorable historical forces? Does great art have the power to change the world? And to what lengths should a person go to thwart evil?