The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland

Journalist Young (Secret New York) recaps the exploits of French Resistance hero Rose Valland in this thrilling saga. Valland (1898–1980) was a curator at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris when the Nazis invaded France, occupied the museum, and began using it as a sorting center for thousands of pieces of stolen art from across Europe. In Young’s vivid telling, a wily Valland made herself appear as nonthreatening and essential as possible, retaining her position in the museum for years while keeping meticulous secret records of the provenance and destination of every piece of art. Her notes made possible the recovery of many artworks after the war (by Valland herself in many cases, as she was commissioned by the U.S. Army to hunt them down). Young’s dramatic recreation of Valland’s war years depicts her as a cool operator: at one point, she was banned from carrying a notebook and had to commit her notes to memory—no easy task when surrounded by paranoid Nazis, who would routinely lash out, accusing her of “everything [from] sabotage and theft” to “signaling to the enemy” (all of which, Young notes, were true). Repeatedly sacked, Valland “talked her way back in” every time by calmly explaining she was a nobody—a mere lowly museum employee (when in reality she was one of the top art historians in France). Readers will relish this riveting tale of a clever war hero playing the long game against bumbling fascists. (May)