On August 25, 1944, Rose Valland, a woman of quiet daring, found herself in a desperate position. From the windows of her beloved Jeu de Paume museum, where she had worked and spied, she could see the battle to liberate Paris thundering around her.

The Jeu de Paume, co-opted by Nazi leadership, was now the Germans’ final line of defense. Would the museum curator be killed before she could tell the truth—a story that would mean nothing less than saving humanity’s cultural inheritance? 

Based on troves of previously undiscovered documents, THE ART SPY chronicles the brave actions of key Resistance spy Rose Valland in the heart of the Nazi’s art looting headquarters in the French capital. A veritable female Monuments Man, Valland has, until now, mostly been written out of the annals, despite bearing witness to history’s largest art theft. While Hitler was amassing stolen art for his future Führermuseum, Valland, his undercover adversary, secretly worked to stop him.

At every stage of World War II, Valland was front and center. She came face to face with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, passed crucial information to the Resistance network, put herself deliberately in harm’s way to protect the museum and her staff, and faced death during the last hours of Liberation Day. She also singlehandedly provided information to stop the last train of looted artworks—bearing paintings by Picasso, Monet, Cézanne, Gauguin, Braque, Degas, Modigliani, and Toulouse-Lautrec—from leaving France. 

Vivid and atmospheric, THE ART SPY moves from the glittering days of pre-War Paris, home to geniuses of modern culture, including Picasso, Josephine Baker, Coco Chanel, Le Corbusier, and Frida Kahlo, through the tension-riddled cities and resorts of Europe on the eve of war, to the harrowing years of the Nazi occupation of France when brave people such as Valland risked everything to fight monstrous evil. 

Author and journalist Michelle Young spent four years researching THE ART SPY, working closely with the association La Mémoire de Rose Valland in France and with the family of Rose Valland—both of which have formally stated their approval of the book. She was granted complete access to archival materials, and to the family and acquaintances of Rose Valland, who shared never-before-seen documents and previously undiscovered materials. THE ART SPY also incorporates extensive research from archives throughout France, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom to tell Rose Valland’s exciting wartime story in a way that has never been recounted before.  

In the spirit of Hidden Figures, with the sweeping narrative of The Rape of Europa and the depth of The Resistance Quartet, THE ART SPY is an extraordinary tale of a female hero whose courage and tenacity in a time of violence and terror is an inspiration for us all.