The Art Spy

One of Publishers Weekly’s Top Nonfiction Summer Reads Picks for 2025 — Publishers Weekly”Journalist Young recaps the exploits of French Resistance hero Rose Valland in this thrilling saga… Readers will relish this riveting tale of a clever war hero playing the long game against bumbling fascists.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)“The story of Valland’s courage and dedication to art and justice is compelling and inspiring… Ideal for fans of espionage and strong narrative nonfiction that reads like a compelling novel.” — Library Journal (starred review)“Young recounts Valland’s brilliance, courage, and sangfroid in enthralling detail as she chronicles her daring work to save the museum’s treasures and her shrewd spying for the Resistance… like Valland’s zealous rescue of stolen masterpieces, Young vibrantly restores a hidden treasure to the pantheon of WWII heroes.” — Booklist (starred review)“Michelle Young shines new light on the heroic French curator Rose Valland… Young, an award-winning journalist, has an energetic and novelistic writing style… featuring dramatic cliffhangers and vivid sensory details that enhance the historical events.” — New York Times Book Review”Vivid popular history spotlighting a neglected heroine.” — Kirkus Reviews”In the meticulously researched and beautifully written The Art Spy, Young brings to life a forgotten heroine of World War II, one who richly deserves this posthumous portrayal. Rose Valland’s courage and ingenuity in the face of Nazi brutality is staggering, as is the shocking extent to which the Germans hunted down, looted, sold, and even burned irreplaceable works of art, many of which have never been recovered. A must read, and highly recommended.” — Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue”In her masterful biography of one of the greatest unknown heroines of World War II, Michelle Young brings the French art historian Rose Valland to brilliant life and finally gives her the credit she is due. Daily risking her life during the war to document the Nazis’ looting of tens of thousands of French works of art, the quiet, unassuming Valland then helped locate and return the vast majority of those treasures after the conflict. A gripping account of Valland’s passionate one-woman fight to preserve France’s artistic heritage, The Art Spy is a must-read.” — Lynne Olson, New York Times bestselling author of Citizens of London and Madame Fourcade’s Secret War”At last, the greatest spy of wartime Paris has her story told. Working in a museum turned fortress where Nazi occupiers were staging the biggest art theft in history, Rose Valland played a game against the Reich with impossibly high stakes. At play were lives, the world’s masterpieces, and the course of the war itself. Michelle Young writes with the clarity of a historian and the pacing of a thriller.” — Elyse Graham, author of Book and Dagger”Rose Valland might have remained a shadowy footnote in history in less skilled hands. But at the heart of Michelle Young’s thrilling debut—packed with the intrigue of a spy novel, the tension of a wartime thriller, and the vivid detail of great narrative history—is groundbreaking research that restores Valland in all her depth, revealing a figure as richly drawn as the masterpieces she fought to save. With The Art Spy, Young arrives as a major new voice in narrative nonfiction.” — Laurie Gwen Shapiro, author of The Stowaway”The Art Spy puts readers in the front row as a long-overlooked treasure is uncrated. Michelle Young brushes the dust away, page by page, to reveal a WWII hero of quiet brilliance and considerable sang froid. Rose Valland, patriotic protector of France’s patrimony, deserves this fine showcase.” — Christopher C. Gorham, author of The Confidante”As a valiant and effective member of the French Resistance and a leading Monuments Officer in the postwar period, museum curator Rose Valland did more to combat the Nazis’ art plundering program and to remedy its devastating effects, than any figure of the time. Michelle Young’s deeply-researched biography breaks new ground and captures the drama of the curator’s life. Valland put herself in grave danger in order to save France’s cultural patrimony, and resist tyranny – a story that continues to inspire today.” — Jonathan Petropoulos, author of Göring’s Man in Paris: The Story of a Nazi Art Plunderer and His World”Rose Valland rises from the first page of The Art Spy, bearing witness to and doing everything in her power to thwart the Nazi plunder of France’s artistic heritage. Underlying her heroic efforts was her unshakable love of artistic beauty and a determination to preserve it. In life she kept the beam of interest away from herself and aimed towards the art she tried to protect; now, because of Michelle Young’s extraordinary research and vivid storytelling, we come to know Rose herself. A remarkable and timely portrait of courage.” — Natalie Dykstra, author of Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner“Finally! The untold story of Rose Valland, whose mousey appearance and self-effacing demeanor disguised, like Clark Kent to Superman, a woman with a secret life, who, with intelligence and courage, fought by day to save the capital’s art treasures from the German occupiers in World War II Paris.” — Tilar Mazzeo, bestselling author of Irena’s Children”An engaging read about almost-unthinkable courage that also features malicious foes, espionage, and art masterpieces. An unmissable gem.” — Gerri Chanel, author of Saving Mona Lisa”After four years of all-out research in France and America using many unpublished documents, Michelle Young finally allows us to bring Rose Valland to life and discover the important role played by her partner Joyce Heer, during fifty years of their life together. After thirty years, the goal set by the Association ‘La Mémoire de Rose Valland’ is finally achieved through The Art Spy: to promote Rose Valland’s work and bring her out of the shadows.” — Association La Mémoire de Rose Valland”Young does a nice job setting up Valland’s career and bravery to justify exuberant claims about her daring exploits…” — St. Louis Post-Dispatch”Rose Valland wasn’t just a passive observer. She was a resistor, a spy and a tactical genius… Young’s approach to telling this story capture[s] the layered complexity of Valland’s mission.” — St. Louis Jewish Light

Michelle Young is an award-winning journalist, author, and professor whose writing on looted and lost art has appeared in Hyperallergic, The Forward, and The Wilson Quarterly. She is a graduate of Harvard College in the History of Art and Architecture and holds a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where she is a Professor of Architecture. She is the founder of the publication Untapped New York. She divides her time between New York City and Paris.