Paris After the Storm

5 Star Review

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Editorial Book Review:

By Patty Demarco

Paris in 1947 is a city in the complicated work of becoming itself again, and no institution embodies that project more completely than the Louvre, where thousands of recovered artworks wait to be restored, identified, and returned to the families from whom they were stolen. It is into this charged and morally intricate world that William Ian Grubman drops Émile Rothstein, the museum’s youngest Director of Restorations and a gifted artist who spent the occupation quietly doing what he could to protect Jewish-owned art from Nazi seizure.

Paris After the Storm, the second novel in Grubman’s Rothstein Family trilogy, opens on a confession delivered from the back of a police car. A man explains that his motive was love. Everything that follows is the story of how he arrived at that moment, and what it cost. When a Renoir disappears from the Louvre’s holding rooms, the investigation pulls Émile into a network of forged documents, stolen identities, and looted masterworks quietly flowing into the hands of private dealers. That his own wartime activities involved a certain amount of forgery makes him, inevitably, a suspect.

Grubman is interested in moral architecture more than mystery mechanics. The question the novel keeps returning to is not simply who took the painting but what people will do for the things and people they love, and whether the rules that govern peaceful societies retain their force when those societies have so recently failed the people they were supposed to protect. The answers are not comfortable, which is precisely what makes them worth sitting with.

Grubman’s background in art history shows in the texture of the period detail, and his evident feeling for Paris as a physical and cultural place gives the novel an atmosphere that matches its moral weight. For readers who loved The Storm Over Paris, this sequel deepens the world and the family at its center with confidence and skill.

About the Author

William Ian Grubman

Artist, art collector, and philanthropist author William Ian Grubman is devoted to giving his readers fast-paced, high-stakes adventures with characters they’ll remember long after the last page. An avid student of art history, Grubman served as a docent for the Armand Hammer collection, lecturing on 18th and 19th century master paintings and drawings. Through this experience, the seed of his first novel, The Storm Over Paris, was born. 

The Storm Over Paris won the 2019 Indie Reader Discovery Award in Mystery/Thriller/Suspense and was a finalist for the 2019 National Indie Excellence Award.

When William isn’t writing, he dedicates his time to the Dream Street Foundation, a non-profit organization he co-founded with his sister to provide summer camping programs for children with life threatening and chronic illnesses. He’s also a founding member of ACT THREE, a musical theater trio that performs standards from Broadway, Jazz, and The Great American Song Book. 

William lives in Los Angeles and has two children – a future doctor and a future lawyer, he beams proudly. Visit his website at www.williamgrubman.com.