The Paris Deception

Praise for The Paris Deception “A powerful, page-turning tale of two extraordinary heroines who risk their lives rescuing stolen masterpieces during the Nazi occupation of Paris. A stunning read!” —Chanel Cleeton, New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of Our Last Days in Barcelona “A tense and thrilling tale of wartime art thefts, the bond of friendship and lost loves. 1940s Paris is as exquisitely rendered as the stunning paintings Sophie and Fabienne risk their lives to protect.” —Natasha Lester, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Orphan “Bryn Turnbull has such a gorgeous way of writing and her details of the art world, especially during WWII, are nothing short of a masterpiece in their own right. The Paris Deception is a story of incredible bravery.” —Madeline Martin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Bookshop in London “A moving and intimate look at two sisters-in-law whose friendship has fractured as the Second World War exacts its catastrophic moral, physical and emotional toll[s].... Another thought-provoking, impressively researched and richly realized work from one of Canada’s best historical fiction authors.” —Natalie Jenner, internationally bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society “Evocative and compelling.... Fraught with the complications of love, the nuance of friendship, and the moral ramifications of resistance to tyranny, this is a fresh and fascinating tale.” —Kristin Beck, author of The Winter Orphans “The Paris Deception is an engrossing tale filled with art, intrigue, and champagne. Turnbull has gifted readers with a complex heroine they can’t help cheering for in the end.” —Kaia Alderson, author of Sisters in Arms Bryn Turnbull is the internationally bestselling author of The Woman Before Wallis. Equipped with a master of letters in creative writing from the University of St. Andrews, a master of professional communication from Toronto Metropolitan University and a bachelor’s degree in English literature from McGill University, Bryn focuses on finding stories of women lost within the cracks of the historical record. She lives in Toronto. The Paris Deception Bryn Turnbull To Alec...and Pierce Brosnan Contents Quote Prologue Part One Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Part Two Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Part Three Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Epilogue Author Note Acknowledgments Reader’s Guide Questions For Discussion Article 46: Family honour and rights, the lives of persons, and private property, as well as religious convictions and practice, must be respected. Private property cannot be confiscated. —Extract from “Laws and Customs of War on Land,” from the Hague Convention, October 18, 1907 Prologue March 1939Berlin It took only seconds for the paintings to catch alight but hours for the flames to die into ash. Oil, after all, had a tendency to burn: it smoked and blistered like skin, layers of paint peeling back upon itself as the pigments—yellow ocher and cadmium red, vermilion and chartreuse and burnt sienna—blackened into char. Works that had once been beautiful were reduced to their basest parts; lit by the flames, they were nothing more than composite pieces of destruction, chemicals and flax and wood, each burning into nothingness as the flames licked ever higher. From her place in the shadows of the moonless night, Sophie watched a book sail through the air, its cover opening like the wings of a bird. It hung, suspended, above the smoke before arcing into the conflagration, its leaves curling as flames kissed the spine. She looked at the man who had thrown it: he stared, stone-faced, into the bonfire before bending over the wheelbarrow to pick up another accelerant, his fireman’s badge glinting as he fed the flames. Had he been alone, Sophie would have run up, pulled the wheelbarrow from his grasp, saved what she could—but this was state-sanctioned destruction, and twenty other firefighters were feeding the bonfire too, a fifty-foot monster fueled by a generation’s worth of art. Did it bother him, she wondered, watching his sweaty face transform into gargoyle features by the flickering light, to be fueling a fire instead of putting it out? His professional solicitousness suggested that it did not; if he were revolted by the work he was doing, he didn’t let it show. The stench of burning paint reached Sophie’s throat, and though she retched at the acrid taste, she did not turn away. Like everyone else watching from behind the line of soldiers’ rifles, she wasn’t there out of morbid fascination but for posterity, committing the frightening scene to memory. Thousands of works of art—millions of dollars—destroyed. Complex Cubist paintings, passionate Expressionist works, belligerent Surrealist pastiches and baffling Dadaist collages—all gone in the space of a night. Like so many others watching—curators and connoisseurs and restorers, the artists and authors who’d not yet gone underground—Sophie had been summoned by a whisper network of sympathetic specialists still operating within Germany. Despite her vow to never step foot within the Reich again, she had come to bear witness to Hitler’s destruction of Germany’s cultural heritage. The last time Sophie had seen the paintings had been in Munich, two years ago, at the opening of the Entartete Kunst exhibition. She’d attended out of professional curiosity, quelling her fears about traveling to Germany in order to see the odious concept in action. Entartete Kunst—Degenerate Art—had been as horrible as she’d anticipated, a master collection of modern art displayed in cruel chaos, jingoistic