An improbable story that keep me turning pages. Claire is a believable protagonist, even as she makes bad decisions. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in art history, Degas, or a vivid story of how to paint a copy of a copy of a masterpiece. ( )

I had to sit and read all day day because I opened up The Art Forger by Shapiro and could not put it down. Claire Roth is an artist who, for a living, creates high quality copies of masterpieces of art. When the director of a well known art gallery brings her a painting to copy she recognizes it as a Degas work that had been stolen from a museum twenty-five years earlier. As she begins to work she realizes that the painting the museum had was a copy as well. Good writing, good character buildup, good pacing, - a real spellbinder. ( )

The mixture of real events with the fictional story was well done. But ultimately the story seemed somewhat rushed and under-constructed. ( )

KIRKUS REVIEWA cleverly plotted art-world thriller/romance with a murky moral core.That nobody knows anything seems to be Shapiro?s (The Safe Room, 2002, etc., as Barbara Shapiro) assessment of art authentication, given the number of misdetected paintings strewn through her engrossing if unlikely story. In Boston, painter Claire Roth has spent three years dealing with the guilt and scandal of her involvement with Isaac Cullion, whose breakthrough work, 4D, she painted for him when he was blocked. After the picture became a success, Cullion refused to acknowledge Claire?s involvement, and her objections plus the attendant rumors led to his suicide and her vilification. Since then, she has survived financially by painting reproductions, so when influential gallery owner Aiden Markel arrives with a bizarre proposalĄher own show if she will forge a copy of a Degas, one of the pictures stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner MuseumĂ‚ÂĄshe says yes. As she works, Claire and Aiden become lovers, but she doesn?t tell him about her discovery that the stolen Degas is itself a copy. This knowledge is Claire?s lifeline when the finished forgery is discovered, Aiden and then Claire are both arrested, and only she can save them.Despite a shaky premise, this is convincingly researched, engaging storytelling. Intelligent entertainment.Pub Date: Oct. 23rd, 2012ISBN: 978-1-61620-132-6Page count: 368ppPublisher: AlgonquinReview Posted Online: Aug. 29th, 2012Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15th, 2012

Read this one that had been in my kindle for a long time once I realized it was a spun around the heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum.

For a person who doesn't know much about art I really enjoyed the parts of this about the forgery and overall found it to be a compelling story.

(I accidentally deleted my review from Goodreads so I don't recall exactly what my first impressions where. Rats!) ( )