audio book
Published Jan. 12, 2010 by Hachette Audio.
Psychiatrist Andrew Marlow, devoted to his profession and the painting hobby he loves, has a solitary but ordered life. When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient, Marlow finds that order destroyed. Desperate to understand the secret that torments the genius, he embarks on a journey that leads him into the lives of the women closest to Oliver and a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism. Kostova's masterful new novel travels from American cities to the coast of Normandy, from the late 19th century to the late 20th, from young love to last love. THE SWAN THIEVES is a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope.
I read some pretty scathing reviews of this book, and while I didn't enjoy it as much as The Historian, I thought the story was compelling, though at times a little choppy. I also enjoyed how the author suggests things without tying all the threads up too neatly for the reader. Kostova understands that paintings never give up all their secrets to the same person.
