The Last Weynfeldt
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“A sophisticated and urbane novel with a swanky, dapper European setting that is as much Poe and Chandler as Hitchcock and Truffaut . . . A page-turner” (André Aciman, New York Times–bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name).
Adrian Weynfeldt is an art expert in an international auction house, a bachelor in his mid-fifties living in a grand Zurich apartment filled with costly paintings and antiques. Always correct and well-mannered, he’s given up on love until one night—entirely out of character for him—Weynfeldt decides to take home a ravishing but unaccountable young woman. The next morning, he finds her outside on his balcony threatening to jump. Weynfeldt talks her down and soon finds himself falling for this damaged but alluring beauty and his buttoned-up existence comes unraveled. As their two lives become entangled, Weynfeldt gets embroiled in an art forgery scheme that threatens to destroy everything he and his prominent family have stood for. This refined page-turner moves behind elegant bourgeois façades into darker recesses of the heart.
“Suter . . . leavens the sensationalism of crime fiction with psychological insight and melancholy . . . Comfort food for readers who crave memorable characters, romance, and touching, drawn-from-life scenes.” —Publishers Weekly
“Swift, edgy . . . What distinguishes this work is the air of slightly faded existential elegance, which sets off the modern setting splendidly . . . Great for sophisticated suspense fans.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“Set in the midst of that vibrant and bizarre organism known as the art world. A captivating read about a memorable protagonist.” —Noah Charney, author of The Museum of Lost Art
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fans of sensitive, slightly aloof Euro-thrillers think Stefan Zweig or filmmaker Claude Chabrol will recognize the metier of Swiss writer Suter, who here leavens the sensationalism of crime fiction with psychological insight and melancholy. Adrian Weynfeldt is an aging bachelor defined by his work buying and selling paintings for a Zurich-based auction house, the haunting memory of his aristocratic family, and his Thursday lunches with his failed artist friends (for whom he generally picks up the tab). Weynfeldt seems condemned to a predictable life until he finds himself abruptly departing from the security of routine. First, he falls for a young femme fatale named Lorena, who threatens suicide after their first encounter and, days later, is caught shoplifting from a department store. Then he becomes embroiled in an art forgery caper masterminded by old family friend, Klaus Baier, who's everything Weynfedlt isn't: desperate, impulsive, and materialistic. As his affair with Lorena becomes more passionate (and her behavior more worrying) and the immoral Baier tightens his grasp, Weynfeldt finds himself oddly revivified by the thrill of being taken advantage of but eventually he will have to choose between his reckless new life and the humdrum safety of the old. Suter is neither overtly experimental nor given to particularly gritty prose, but this is a refreshing book nonetheless, comfort food for readers who crave memorable characters, romance, and touching, drawn-from-life scenes.
