Publishers Weekly
The Third Reich’s Sonderprojekt, to collect the world’s great art, is underway when Romano-Lax’s second novel begins, as 24-year-old curator Ernst Vogler, whose mentor has just been sent to Dachau, goes to Italy to retrieve the famous Discus Thrower statue. The young man’s simple three-day journey goes awry immediately when his local police escorts—brothers Enzo and Cosimo—take a circuitous route to throw off thieves. Enzo wants to pursue a woman, while Cosimo wants the German to see the beauty around them and grows frustrated at Ernest’s stoicism. When tragedy separates the brothers, such concerns take a backseat to survival and protecting the statue for the Führer. Throughout it all, Vogler recalls past incidents as they relate to the Reich, including his father’s obsession with his son’s physique and his mentor’s concern about the world’s art being collected for the benefit of only a few (Vogler’s own view is that “the art would outlive the men” who own it). In following a trio of meanderers, Romano-Lax (The Spanish Bow) brings inertia to her narrative, deflating the foreboding of this German’s imploding assignment. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary. (Feb.)
Library Journal
In 1938, Ernst Vogler is sent to Italy by the German government to bring back for Hitler a famous ancient statue, Myron's The Discus Thrower. Vogler is a sad case. Afraid to speak up about what is happening in Germany, he falls back on obedience to orders as a lifeline; his passion for art is only "a substitution for other losses." Sneaking out of Rome with the statue tucked safely in back of a truck, Vogler is accompanied by two Italian brothers, both policemen. They have three days to reach the German border. But time has its own logic in Italy, and one brother has his own agenda. There are betrayals. People die. Vogler's schedule is thrown to the winds. Then, unexpectedly, Vogler is given the gift of love with a beautiful and passionate woman in the lush countryside of Piedmont. VERDICT Romano-Lax is singularly gifted: she creates full-fledged, engaging characters and writes compelling narrative. Some of her descriptive passages take your breath away. The author's The Spanish Bow was a hit. This novel will make a splash, too, for the same reasons. [See Prepub Alert, 8/21/11.]—David Keymer, Modesto, CA
Kirkus Reviews
From the author of The Spanish Bow (2007), a somewhat less successful sophomore outing. The task of 26-year-old Ernst Vogler, a minor functionary for the Third Reich's Special Projects division, looks straightforward enough. He's to travel to Rome and oversee the packing of the classical statue The Discus Thrower, recently purchased on the express instructions of Hitler, the former art student known to his underlings as Der Kunstsammler. Then Vogler is to accompany Italian twins Enzo and Cosimo as they transport the statue to the border, where it will be handed over to the Gestapo, and he will get back to the safety of his desk. But things go immediately awry. Vogler, a callow young art expert who favors the "deep, clean, and relatively painless cut of narrow knowledge" to the messiness of politics or larger cultural issues--and who has been tapped for this plum job in part because he appeared, by sheer accident, to have expressed public contempt for a black American athlete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics--finds that he lacks the needed linguistic and cultural skills to navigate languid, un-orderly, sentimental Italy. To avoid a threatened theft or double-cross, his drivers take to rustic side roads, a tactic that slows the pace and jeopardizes Vogler's deadline. Then it becomes apparent that the brothers have higher priorities than the job at hand: romances, marriage proposals, rivalries, a perilous entanglement with criminals. After a series of escalating misadventures, Vogler finds himself marooned in an Italian pastoral family life that may be dolce around the edges, but that is also extremely dangerous. Along the way, though, he surrenders himself both to the adventure and to a surprising (and not quite believable) love. The historical context is fascinating and atmospheric, but the novel wavers between suspense and romance and never quite convinces as either. Hews too close to stereotype. Not bad, but mildly disappointing.
