In the vein of Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie novels comes a smart thriller with literary chops. Art appraiser Helena Marsh explores shady deals and complicated history as she navigates post-WWII corruption in the art world.

“This peppy thriller from Porter bursts with banter and tantalizes the reader with half-revelations and game-changing twists.” — Kirkus Reviews

“[A]n intelligent and exhilarating thriller.” — Publishers Weekly

“A gripping thriller set against the rich post-war history of middle-Europe.” — Staunch Book Prize Committee 

When wealthy octogenarian Geza Marton hires art expert Helena Marsh to buy back his family’s Titian painting, Helena flies to Budapest to close what she expects will be a reasonably simple sale. But nothing is ever simple in this beautiful, flawed city where corruption abounds. Helena discovers that there are multiple bidders for the painting, including some dangerous Slavs. Soon there are also dead bodies, and a complicated history that leads her to men Marton knew in Vorkuta, one of Stalin’s notorious gulags.

As she works to unravel the truth of the painting’s ownership and dodges her tail, the dogged ex-detective Attila Feher, Helena is forced to call on all her considerable skills to stay alive and out of jail. Smart, fast-paced, and wildly entertaining, The Appraisal is a terrific thriller set against Budapest’s corruption and lost promise.

Anna Porter was born in Budapest, Hungary, during the Second World War and escaped with her mother at the end of the 1956 revolution to New Zealand, where she graduated with an MA from Christchurch University. Like so many young Kiwis, after graduation she travelled to London, England, where she had her first taste of publishing. In 1968, she arrived in Canada, and was soon swept up in the cultural explosion of the 1970s. At McClelland & Stewart, run by the flamboyant Jack McClelland, she quickly found herself at the heart of Canadian publishing. In 1982, she founded Key Porter Books and published such national figures as Farley Mowat, Jean Chrétien, Conrad Black, and Allan Fotheringham. She went on to write both fiction and nonfiction works, including Kasztner’s Train, which won the Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize and the Jewish Book Award, The Ghosts of Europe, which won the Shaughnessey Cohen Prize for Political Writing, and has published four mystery novels. She is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a recipient of the Order of Ontario. She lives in Toronto with her husband, Julian Porter. Visit her at AnnaPorter.ca.

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• Short-listed, Staunch Book Prize

“Anna Porter’s latest novel combines a number of interesting subjects … it offers an opportunity to consider what is truly valuable in life.” — Quill & Quire

“Porter’s offbeat thriller yields tension and humor from its revolving perspectives as well as its deep bench of colorful supporting characters … This peppy thriller from Porter (Kasztner’s Train, 2008, etc.) bursts with banter and tantalizes the reader with half-revelations and game-changing twists.” — Kirkus Reviews

“[A]n intelligent and exhilarating thriller … Porter’s stylish story vividly transports readers to Budapest and other European locales and keeps them hooked as her well-developed characters navigate corruption and deception” — Publishers Weekly

“All of this is daring and mystifying fun, and includes along the way a tour through everything that’s fascinating about Budapest’s history, especially the appalling bits.” — Toronto Star

“If you want to take a quick trip to Budapest, this book is your ride. Anna Porter knows the byways and cafés of her native town and spins a web of mystery around an art heist, Ukrainian criminals and money laundering. In short, we have everything we want in an Eastern European crime novel.” — Globe and Mail

The Appraisal

by Louise