The Paris Secret by Karen Swan

 genre: historical fiction

Flora's job as a fine art agent has led to her meeting a lot of interesting people and some incredible art.  When she is assigned to work for a family in Paris who find in their possession a forgotten apartment full of treasures, an mystery of epic proportions begins.  Flora needs to not only figure out what all the art is and who painted it but how it came to be in that dusty, abandoned apartment.  The threads she tugs at only lead to more secrets and no one is anxious to give anything away.  For a story that only ever stays in the present, the past is a major player as Flora tries to figure out what in the world happened.

This isn't the most beautifully written book - I don't care about what designer made Flora's outfits and sometimes her inner dialogue was exhausting but the truth is that I didn't want to put this down.  The whole art-world vibe, the thrill of following on leads, trying to piece together the past of people long gone, it just was an entertaining ride.  It's an intriguing enough World War 2 story and I totally believed in it, even until the end, so I'm rounding my 3.5 stars up to four.