The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau
A Novel
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4.4 • 25 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Kristin Harmel, the New York Times bestselling author who “is the best there is at sweeping historical drama” (Kelly Harms, author of The Seven Day Switch), returns with an electrifying new novel about two jewel thieves, a priceless bracelet that disappears in 1940s Paris, and a quest for answers in a decades-old murder.
Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, Annabel: take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance.
But one night in 1942, it all went wrong. Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette’s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared in the chaos of the raid, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane’s body was found floating in the Seine—but the bracelet was nowhere to be found.
Seventy years later, Colette—who has “redistributed” $30 million in jewels over the decades to fund many worthy organizations—has done her best to put her tragic past behind her, but her life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston. If Colette can discover where it has been all this time—and who owns it now—she may finally learn the truth about what happened to her sister. But she isn’t the only one for whom the bracelet holds answers, and when someone from her childhood lays claim to the diamonds, she’s forced to confront the ghosts of her past as never before. Against all odds, there may still be a chance to bring a murderer to justice—but first, Colette will have to summon the courage to open her own battered heart.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the affecting latest from Harmel (The Paris Daughter), an aging jewel thief searches for answers about the family she lost in WWII Paris. Colette Marceau, 89, volunteers at a Holocaust education center in 2018 Boston, which she secretly funded with proceeds from the millions of dollars in jewels she's stolen. Colette follows the code handed down by her jewel-thief mother, Annabel, who insisted she steal only from those who are "cruel and unkind," such as a dressmaker who collaborated with the Nazis. Memories of wartime Paris come flooding back when Colette learns that an upcoming museum exhibit will include a diamond-studded bracelet that Annabel recovered from a German officer who had stolen it from Annabel's friend. Shortly after the episode, Annabel was arrested and Colette's younger sister, Liliane, disappeared along with the bracelet. Convinced that finding the person who loaned the bracelet to the museum will help her find out what happened to Liliane, Colette seeks answers from the museum director about the bracelet's provenance. As Harmel seamlessly interweaves the two timelines, she explores the danger Annabel and Colette put themselves in by thieving and the depravity of the Nazis. It's a satisfying drama.
