The premise of the book is great and the author really delivers. Great read. Highly recommended. .

International thriller from a Polish perspective. A covert team is sent off to recover a lost Raphael painting. Hijinks ensue. Miloszewski has a talent for taut actions scenes and taking an otherwise implausible plot to a satisfying conclusion. The social/literary commentary was, by stark contrast, shallow and superfluous. Stick to the story, Ziggy - that's your strength. A good introduction to solid Polish writing, though not Miloszewski's best.

I’m not a great reader of thrillers, not least because I don’t have the right sort of mind to cope with convoluted plots, but I am a great reader of international literature and I was delighted to be given the chance to discover popular Polish author, Zygmunt Miloszewski. This is an energetic, often quite frenzied, art heist story about a Raphael painting, A portrait of a Young Man, thought to be lost after the Nazis looted it from Poland during the Second World War, and now apparently re-discovered. Poland wants its treasure back and so the race is on to recover it, not least because it appears to be linked with some dangerous “secrets” which the good guys must find before the bad guys do. So a wild-cap chase ensues, with lots of tense moments, and although my credulity was stretched almost beyond its normal limits I let myself be carried along with the narrative, and the writing is skilful enough that I really did find myself caught up in events at times and occasionally felt quite nervous. I will assuredly never get in a mountain cable car with my usual insouciance ever again….. Conspiracies, wartime skulduggery, politics, greed, art, an intricate plot – all narrated with verve and enthusiasm and if not perhaps a literary masterpiece nonetheless a good fun read.

I received the ebook copy of this book courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley. All my opinions are my own.

I actually ended up reading both Priceless and its original, Bezcenny, side by side. Much of my reading experience became dedicated to tracing discrepancies and changes, and I feel like I should write two reviews, because to my mind, Priceless and Bezcenny are not the same book. But let's leave that for later. For now, just Priceless.

I had some minor issues with the novel, but on the whole, enjoyed it and found it quite unputdownable. It's an enjoyable action-adventure-crime romp that very much calls to mind Joanna Chmielewska in plot and theme and - to a lesser extent - in style. Aside from occasional missteps (related to characters' sexist actions and words being ignored or, on the contrary, extolled), there is good characterisation and fast plot to enjoy, and great use of historical detail.

Unfortunately, as I was reading, I came across a passage I found quite clunky and so I decided to compare the translation to the original... and discovered that the discrepancy was vast and gaping. The fragment I was confused by referred to Lisa, one of the characters, speaking in broken Polish. This was barely evident in her English dialogue - a lot of the humour was lost, and sometimes this led to loss of meaning, too. But the problem was deeper - it turned out this translation was in fact an abridged version of the original. Whole scenes and passages were missing in the final English-language text. Some of it was, frankly, for the better - a half-page aside about sexy lady who happened to be a little person (with zero bearing on the plot), a group of funny but less-than-important treasure hunters or vaguely-possibly-antisemitic parts disappeared giving the reader a leaner and more focused end result (and tigers changing into lions were definitely a step-up, since tigers CAN run in the snow). I get that. But some of the cuts gave us an inferior result. A lot of them concerned Polish politics, apparently considered too obscure for the international audience. Some were clearly about saving space, though I'd say Zofia calling Alice Munro's writing pretentious is quite different from her complaining about Munro but alsoCormac McCarthy and Roth. And why was the same necessary for scenes of conflict between the characters, giving us relevant insight into their motivation? Why did Zofia's grandfather have to have his plotline altered (to enable the editor to cut ~20 pages, I assume)? I ended up feeling a little cheated - I know translations can take liberties, but I must say I wasn't familiar with the practice of delivering a translation that's possibly 10% shorter, and avoids a lot of detail that makes the original what it was - a novel in argument with political and historical issues, so many of which end up expunged, resulting in a bowdlerised edition.

And I must insist that I found the translation of Lisa's dialogue to miss the mark quite a lot throughout the text. It wasn't funny, or match characters' reactions, quite simply.

Since I was reading an ARC, perhaps some of these problems disappeared from the final product. But I must say this didn't really give me much hope for the quality of translations from Polish to English. If you can, do read this in Polish.

Oh man, this is art intrigue done right! There's a lot of reality here (Polish history and legacy is evoked throughout) but also plenty of invented intrigue and villains to make this a truly epic, over-the-top-only-sometimes and tense thriller. The main characters are flawed but also really enjoyable to read. They race against the clock (such a quickly ticking clock!) while Miloszewski also throws in history and research. This is a lot of juggle but Miloszewski handles it with the best pacing I've read in ages. The translation must also be fantastic because I never noticed anything stilted or out-of-place.

This mystery suspense novel is extremely complex. There is a great deal of information and many characters enter and exit the plot frequently. It took me awhile to adapt to the author's writing style, but once I slowed down and began to unravel the many threads, I found Priceless entertaining. I appreciated the amount of research that went into setting the scenes and the detail with which the art was described. This book would most likely appeal to readers of historical fiction and suspense with lots of educational opportunities contained in the read. 3.5

In a change of pace, Polish crime writer Zygmunt Miloszewski serves up an art heist caper in <i>Priceless</i>.

Zofia Lorentz is an art historian who works for the Polish government seeking to recover national treasures stolen during the Second World War. Her life's ambition is to find the missing painting, Portrait of a Young man, by Raphael. When the government summons her and shows tantalising evidence that the painting may have been found she has little hesitation in agreeing to head a covert action to recover it.

Her assigned team consists of art dealer Karol, soldier Anatol and international art thief Lisa. Zofia is not happy with any of these choices, but the crew get together and plan to find and steal the missing painting. This action leads them into a world of trouble and it becomes clear that their government will not help them.

The novel is a typical caper story, with lots of intrigue and a few different plot strands for the reader to try and figure out. It's over the top, but all good fun. I was perhaps a bit disappointed towards the end; after the big plot twist is revealed the book seems to run out of steam and become rather lame and flaccid. After such a breakneck pace, ending on such domestic notes seemed a bit anticlimactic.

Look, I love reading about a Heist just as much as I love reading about recovering stolen art. This story started out slow, and gained the much needed pace somewhere in between (if you're reading on Kindle, it's around 30% that I started enjoying the story). If you're into Art and History and love some adventure, then this could be one of the books to read. Thanks NetGalley for the eARC.

An adventure and crime story about tracking down art treasures stolen from Poland during the Nazi occupation. Described as ‘reminiscent of Dan Brown’, I actually enjoyed it much more than Dan Brown – maybe because it is Europe NOT seen through the eyes of an American. Well researched, but the author also dares to go off on flights of (plausible) fantasy. Great romp with interesting characters.

This was a free book from NetGalley
Review of “Priceless” by Zygmunt Miloszewski

Miloszewski is one of the top “crime” writers in Poland. Though this is more of a thriller it does contain his detail to characterization and knowledge of European culture and norms. The story has two main threads, one of which I found to be more of a distraction from the other thread which is truly the main story.

During World War Two, the Nazis made a game out of who could “loot” the most priceless of artistic legacies of the countries they conquered. Not just national museums were looted, but the private collections of most of the Jews and other “enemies of the State” who were sent to the concentration/death camps.

After Hitler, Himmler and Goering, the worst of the “looters” was Hans Frank. Frank was the Gauliter (Leader) of the GeneralGouvernment (what remained of Poland) that he ruled as his own fiefdom during WW2. He was in charge of the majority of the large concentration camps that exterminated over 6 million Poles, Jews, Russians, Romani and others. Even Hitler was known to refer to Frank as the “King of Poland”.

During the time of his rule, from 1939-45, over 40 thousand works of art were reportedly looted from all over Poland. The most famous work stolen, that he kept on the wall of his apartment, was the “Portrait of a Young Man” by Rafael. It is considered by most Poles as their equivalent of the “Mona Lisa”. Because the Nazi regime considered the works of the Impressionists (Monet, Manet, Renoir, van Gogh, Degas, etc) to have been “decadent”, he kept these in ‘private’ collection.

At the end of the war, the Young Man and the Impressionist paintings disappeared, they were rumored to have been on a special train, sent back to Germany, and stored in an underground hide-out. To this day, none of the paintings have surfaced anywhere in the world or even on the black markets for stolen art.

The tracing of the location of the lost art is what this story is all about, and the second secret that relates to actions by the US Government during and after the war is the second (to my mind) less interesting thread. There are four main protagonists, who Miloszewski has developed into ‘real’ people. As in most of these tales, somethings that happen are just over the ‘line’ but not totally implausible. The use of locales in Poland and Sweden will make this story more ‘exotic’ that those normally set in Europe.

Bottom line, I found the book well worth reading, especially if you have a quiet weekend where you can read it in a short time to make the tension hold.

Zeb Kantrowitz zebsblog@gmail.com zworstblog@blogspot.com

This is a fast-paced heist novel that deals with Nazi stolen art and various parties wanting to retrieve some "missing" pieces. Lots of screenplay type action scenes. Entertaining, but not the best written or plotted version of this genre.

Thank you Netgalley and AmazonCrossing for the ARC

A team of experts hits the road to recover looted art. In the process being terrorised, shot at, and duped. Some action packed moments, but mostly too much technical and artistic information. I gave up at 59%.

4 stars

A portrait by Raphael of young man which was looted by the Nazis during WWII has just come to light. Interestingly enough, it is titled Portrait of a Young Man. It is a priceless painting, much in the style of the Mona Lisa. It was stolen from Poland. A woman by the name of Dr. Zofia Lorentz of Poland is commissioned to get it back. She has a team of three to aid her. She is not very happy that the Polish government has told her that these people will be her team. She would have rather picked her own team. They include an art thief who is an aristocrat named Lisa Tolgfors, an art dealer with shady connections named Karol Boznanski and ex-paramilitary soldier Anatol Gmitruk. Zofia and Karol have a history with one another.

The team leaves Poland and flies to New York City where they suspect the latest picture of the Raphael was taken. Unbeknownst to Zofia, the man in the seat next to her, charming her to no end, is Jasper Leong a/k/a Hermod. He is the person responsible for the near-disaster on the mountain where Anatol Gmitruk saved sixty-one people in a near crash of a cable car. He is also after the Raphael. Also taking an interest in the presence of Anatol Gmitruk in New York is Captain Clifton Partridge, a member of the US Military Intelligence Corps.

Zofia’s team has identified the present owner of the Young Man. It is Darren Richmond who is an elderly man. Lisa and Karol “rent” a house nearby, ostensibly to try it out, but to really spy on Mr. Richmond’s home and to see if he really has the Raphael. If he does, they are going to steal it. As they are carrying out the plan, something feels not right. The team is correct – it is a trap.

Zofia’s team manages to all get away. From New York, they go on to Scandinavia and finally wind up once more in Poland. The team is under constant threat and in danger; not only of being caught, but being killed as well.

You’ll have to read the book if you want to learn if the team recovered the Raphael or not.

This is a great read. I learned a great deal about art, art thieves and surveillance systems. Mr. Miloszewski paints pictures with words in this exciting adventure and technical adventure story. It is well written and plotted. And the translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones is outstanding. One wouldn’t knowthat they are reading a work that was originally written in Polish. This is my first novel by Zygmunt Miloszewski, but I immediately went to Amazon to look for others of his books. Very well done and highly recommended.

I want to thank NetGalley and AmazonCrossing for forwarding to me a copy of this good book to read, enjoy and review.