The Collector
Page 1
Dear reader,
In the merciless microcosm of Paris art auctions and galleries, some people collect masterpieces, while others, like Marion Spicer, collect trouble.
We are happy to introduce French writer Anne-Laure Thiéblemont with her Paris art mystery The Collector. It’s a book for lovers of mysteries and suspense, art enthusiasts, and anyone interested in Paris. Elle Magazine’s readers panel calls the story both well-written and captivating. The author’s real-life work as an investigative reporter into art and gem trafficking comes through in the details.
Marion Spicer is a PI who spends her days examining auction catalogues and searching for stolen works of art. She is a loner, a little rash. She prefers illusions to reality. And she is the best investigator there is for eighteenth-century art. But her life changes when she inherits a huge and very prestigious collection of pre-Columbian art from a father she never knew. There are conditions attached: she must first find three priceless statues. Her troubles begin as she is drawn into a world where people will kill for a love of beauty.
The Collector will be published in August 2015.
Enjoy the read.
Anne Trager
Publisher
Le French Book
The Collector
Anne-Laure Thiéblemont
Sophie Weiner (translator)
————————————
Ship date: July 2015
Pub date: August 11, 2015
List price: US $16.95
Specs: 5x8, 211 pages
Bisac: FIC022090/Mystery & Detective/PI,
FIC022080/International Mystery & Crime
Trade paperback: 9781939474445
Other available editions:
e-book – 9781939474452 / hardback – 9781939474469
———————————————————
Sales Handle
Some people collect art, others collect trouble.
Audience
Mystery and suspense lovers, art enthusiasts, and anyone interested in Paris.
Author
An art reporter and trained gem specialist, Anne-Laure Thiéblemont is known for her investigations into stolen art and gem trafficking. She works as a magazine editor, and splits her time between Paris and Marseille.
Translator
Sophie Weiner is a freelance translator and book publishing assistant from Baltimore, Maryland. After earning degrees in French from Bucknell University and New York University, Sophie went on to complete a master’s in literary translation from the Sorbonne.
Marketing and Publicity Highlights
- Online author tour – variety of targeted blogs and online outlets
- Translator appearances – regional and local
- Trade review outlets, mystery/thriller press
- Publisher website, blog, social media coverage, and e-mail blasts
Praise
“The plot is unexpected, original and takes you by surprise.” —Elle Magazine (Readers Panel)
“The story is captivating, with twists and turns and murders, along with a dive into the little-known world of art specialists and counterfeiters.” — Elle Magazine (Readers Panel)
“A well-written plot with all the necessary ingredients: a few deaths, lost objects and a whole collection of worrisome characters…Ideal for a moment of relaxation.” — Elle Magazine (Readers Panel)
“A good first mystery set in the cut-throat world of art collectors. Anne-Laure Thiéblemont depicts well the power struggles, scams and greed, and pulls readers in with the story of poor Marion Spicer who didn’t ask for anything.” —L’Ours Polar
“A writer to follow. A well-researched and very effective mystery.” —La Provence
“Anne-Laure Thiéblemont has written a fine first mystery set in the shifty world of art collecting. She respects some of the genre codes, but also breaks from them with an unexpected tone and rich characters. A good fix.” —Lire
“As much a mystery as an identity quest, with tight suspense and strong writing, this debut novel by an experienced art reporter reveals her qualities as a writer with a promising future.” —Playboy
Marketing and PR Contact
Anne Trager
Le French Book
US: +1 (970) 335-8042
anne@lefrenchbook.com
Distribution
ipage.ingrambook.com
Phone: (800) 648-4119
E-mail: ips@ingramcontent.com
Advance Reader Copy
Uncorrected - For Review Only
Release Date: August 11, 2015
The Collector
Anne-Laure Thiéblemont
Translated from French by Sophie Weiner
All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
First published in France as
Le Collectionneur
by Editions Liana Levi
©2006 Editions Liana Levi
English translation ©2015 Sophie Weiner
First published in English in 2015
by Le French Book, Inc., New York
http://www.lefrenchbook.com
Translator: Sophie Weiner
Translation editor: Amy Richards
Proofreader: Chris Gage
Cover designer: Jeroen ten Berge
ISBNs:
Trade paperback: 9781939474445
Hardback: 9781939474469
E-book: 9781939474452
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. For the purposes of the story, the author took authorial license with references to historical events, places, facts, and people.
To Michel
One evening, I sat Beauty in my lap.
And found her bitter. And I cursed her.
—Arthur Rimbaud
Prologue
In the sparsely furnished room, the air thick with smells of alcohol, sweat, and stale cooking fat, the girl whimpered as he pinned her down with his leg and blindly groped for something beside the bed. He fumbled until he found it: a terra-cotta figure.
The man smiled faintly while he caressed the cold almond eyes and prominent nose with fingers that were long and thin, like an artist’s. He tensed when he couldn’t find the metal ring in the sculpture’s nostrils, then relaxed when he made contact. He brushed his hands over the cold emeralds and along the notches on the right side of the figure, like ritual markings that bridged the gap between him and his sculpture, his Tattooed Man, which stood erect on the dirt floor.
Still fondling the object, he turned his attention to the girl, who was crying now. He pulled himself upright and clutched at her. The iron bed screeched and banged against the wall as he tried to heave himself onto her. She kicked and swatted at him. Just as she struck his face, which already had three long, perfectly symmetrical scars, he released his hold and collapsed on top of her, convulsing, and mumbling incoherently.
~ ~ ~
She waited, suspended in silence under the mass of flesh. A few seconds went by before she realized what had happened and pushed the dead weight off her. She rushed out of the house and into the night.
When the body was discovered half an hour later, the sculpture was gone.
1
“The collection is this way.”
His tone was dry and not particularly welcoming. Standing before her in the parlor, he gave her the chills. His gray reptilian eyes showed no emotion, and his long face seemed cut from ivory. His right hand was sunk deep in the pocket of his night-blue blazer and refused to budge—not even to greet her.
George Gaudin had been Ed
mond Magni’s personal assistant until a week ago, when, somewhere in Peru, Magni had mysteriously dropped dead—for the second time in Marion’s life.
The first time, her mother was the one to announce the news. “He died in a plane crash,” she had told Marion. It was a lie. In truth, her husband had abandoned his family and his given name, Jean Spicer, and had assumed a new identity.
From the age of three, Marion had gotten by without him, believing all those years that her father was dead, without so much as a photo to cling to. Not a single picture of him could be found in their home. And every time she asked her mother to share a story, an anecdote, a memory, the woman would retreat into a silence or fly into a fit that could only be remedied if she isolated herself in her bedroom and slept.
Marion stopped asking questions.
Now, thirty-three years later, out of the blue, an executor had informed her that her father hadn’t been dead all those years. He had just made a new life for himself, and she would be inheriting—among other things—one of the greatest collections of pre-Columbian art in the world, valued at over forty million euros. Of course, the inheritance had certain stipulations. Nothing came that easy for Marion.
Gaudin crept to the other end of the room and gestured for her to follow. She had hoped to linger in the immense space. Perhaps it would rouse the memory of a scent, an image, a feeling of déjà-vu—anything to fill the void. But she couldn’t find the slightest personal connection.
She hadn’t seen so many in one place since watching Barry Lyndon in a Stanley Kubrick retrospective. She surveyed the Louis XV-style furniture with its Rococo curves, the brocade fabrics, the brass, the redwood marquetry, the Boulle-work drawers, the Venetian mirrors, and the chandeliers dripping pendants of rock crystal.
A world so unlike her humble childhood.
“This way.”
The assistant’s directive dripped with arrogance.
Without any further formalities, he disappeared behind a copper-colored silk wall hanging. She followed and discovered a reinforced door that opened to a narrow staircase. She hurried down the steps just as the door closed behind her. It made surprisingly little noise, considering its weight.
Marion stopped at the bottom of the stairs. The space was cold and devoid of light, sound, colors, and smells. She peered into the darkness. It seemed like an unknown abyss, and she had the disturbing sensation that she was being watched.
Gaudin flicked on the lights. A shiver traveled up Marion’s spine, and she gasped. In the faint illumination provided by the bulbs, literally hundreds of clay sculptures and vessels took shape. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were lined with odd-looking creatures. Some had hollow eyes, stunted bodies, and swollen arms and legs. Many looked sickly and tormented. They stared at her with lifeless eyes.
Marion’s mouth went dry, and her legs began to shake. Eventually she inched closer and examined the sculptures one by one. She knew that some of the pieces were pre-Incan portrait vases. She had never cared for these indigenous works. And in such large numbers, she found them disturbing. Certainly there was nothing aesthetically pleasing about the frozen assembly of cripples in this place.
A second room was equally disquieting, filled as it was with oversized phalluses and female genitalia in every possible position and depiction—pimple-covered erections, clitoris-shaped noses, pumas copulating with toads, skeletal women being sodomized. By the looks of it, Magni had relished the world of sexual obsession. Marion just stared at the impassive expressions on the faces of the silent participants.
“Thousands of years, and these bodies are still here for us to see and touch. Isn’t that fascinating?” Gaudin said from behind her.
Marion didn’t respond. She could barely breathe. This space was a shrine to her father’s obscenity, negotiated at the cost of gutted tombs and stolen memories. And for what? A dark and irrational desire to claim ownership over the souls of the dead? An attempt to give them a second life? Or to extend his own? Was he afraid of something? Or of someone?
Gaudin appeared to take her silence as an invitation to continue. He picked up a female figure and weighed it in his hands.
“Here we have the likeness of a poor woman condemned for her sexual transgressions. Her mind and body are withered away,” he said in a clearly feigned tone of compassion. “Debauchery, depravity—this is how she’s immortalized.”
“That’s your opinion,” Marion replied harshly. “We don’t know enough about these early civilizations to make such judgments. And we certainly don’t know anything about her.”
“Does it matter? These objects are loved for the imagery they arouse, not necessarily for their raison d’être, which no longer exists in any case.”
“Whose fault is that? If they hadn’t been stolen and hidden away from the world like this, maybe we’d know a bit more about the people who created them.”
“A woman of morals,” Gaudin snickered. “I can’t believe Magni entrusted his collection with someone so naïve.”
He started to walk away before she could respond. “Let’s go. The tour isn’t over yet. I wager you’ll be convinced by the end of it.”
Her jaw clenched, Marion followed him into the last room.
“Here we are. The Holy of Holies,” the assistant said with feverish eyes. “Here we have the most beautiful pieces in the world.”
Marion’s tension dissolved as she gazed at the room while her tour guide swooped from one breathtaking piece to the next. The floor was covered with intricate lapis lazuli inlays. Soft lights in the showcases illuminated gold metalwork here and a shimmering serpentine mask there. The collection, nearly thirty pieces altogether, was shockingly beautiful. This was nothing like the wild assortment in the first two rooms. Perhaps Magni had become more selective over the years.
“But why? Why such a radical change?” she asked.
“Because all connoisseurs’ tastes evolve when they no longer give into the same impulses.”
“He could have sold his less valuable pieces. Why did he keep them?”
“They made him who he was. They were his questions, his answers, his qualms. They were his memories. They kept him on track. Having them around reminded him of why he was different.”
“Different?”
“He wasn’t like other collectors. Most are in it for the prestige, or they’re trying to forget where they came from—some are people with no families of note who want to create a new kind of lineage through their acquisitions.”
“And what was he after?” she asked as she approached a mask with both shaman and jaguar-like features.
“You have to get closer, much closer. Probe the object, smell it, imagine what lies beneath,” Gaudin whispered in her ear.
She swiftly slid away from him.
“Look at it. Such expression, such power in the design. This jade—a mineral harder than steel—was sculpted with ancient tools. Can you imagine?”
“You haven’t answered my question. What was Magni’s goal?”
“His goal? Ah yes, his goal,” Gaudin repeated indifferently. “I could tell you that he wanted to know everything, that he wanted to examine continuities and variations in style. Hmm, what else? That he had a need to replace something that he lost, maybe something that wasn’t there in the first place. Mademoiselle, collecting is a form of lust. There’s a burning desire. It’s not something you can explain in so many words.”
So Magni was no different from other collectors. Marion sighed and turned her attention to Gaudin. He was patronizing her. She couldn’t quite figure him out. Although ghost-like and guarded upstairs, he was an entirely different animal underground. The basement aroused him. Now he was animated, and his body language was exaggerated. He was scary, like the figures in the first room. It was as if the sculptures and their protector were fused together. It made her think of Indonesian headhunters harnessing their enemy’s life force through preserved heads.
“Let’s go back upstairs,” she suggested abruptly. “I ha
ve to show you some photographs. They’re in the living room.”
“What photographs?”
“The three sculptures I need to find.”
“Three?” he said with a hint of worry in his voice, as if the number were more important than the sculptures themselves.
“You are well aware of the provisions of the will, aren’t you?”
“The estate attorney mentioned something, yes, but he didn’t specify a number.”
“Three, eight, ten. What’s the difference? Either way, I’m in a bind. No sculptures, no inheritance.”
~ ~ ~
Gaudin sat down on a caramel-colored velvet couch. Behind him was a pink marble fireplace with a fluted surround. There wasn’t the trace of an ember in the hearth.
“He hated the sound of wood crackling in a fireplace,” Gaudin said.
“He must have been the only person in the world.”
“I never liked it either.”
Ignoring his reply, she picked up her bag, which had been lying on the floor next to a large parquet table, handed him the three photos, and sat down in a chair across from him. It was as plush as the cushion lining a jewelry box. She exhaled at last. Gaudin could act cross if he wanted; it was more comfortable up here. But the instant she looked over at him she was struck by his alarmed state. His forehead was covered with sweat as he stared at the photos in his lap.
“What is it?” she asked, shifting in her seat.