In
The Swan Thieves, Robert Oliver, an acclaimed artist, has been incarcerated in a psychiatric institution since attacking a painting in the National Gallery with a knife. He refuses to speak or explain his actions in any way. Dr. Andrew Marlow is assigned to his case, both for his background as an artist and for his ability to get patients to talk. He gets no farther with Oliver until he brings him some artistic supplies. Oliver then paints the same eerie portrait of a woman over and over again. Marlow seeks out Oliver's ex-wife and an ex-lover in an attempt to understand Oliver's past. He discovers that Oliver has 19th-century letters between two artists and wonders if they hold the key to his behavior. This second novel from Elizabeth Kostova (
The Historian) has received mixed reviews with the London Times saying, "That said, it’s an atmospheric, richly entertaining piece of work, much more ambitious than
The Historian, and retains a human scale even when it's nudging its readers in supernatural directions."
