A review by morsecode
The Vanished Collection by Pauline Baer de Perignon

This is the kind of book that I should have loved. I’m very interested in the subject matter and have a professional interest in research. The author/narrator began to grate on me. I didn’t mind that she writes so much about herself. That’s neither here nor there. I hated how oblivious she kept showing herself to be (oops, cousin, no wonder you don’t want to talk about this, I forgot your father was murdered at Auschwitz; oh no, I can’t read the records in the German archives that I traveled to Germany to see because they are written in German).  She also contradicts herself a few times within the narrative and, most frustrating of all, doesn’t follow through (or explain the choice not to) on tracking the other stolen paintings or investigating more deeply why her family received such comparably good treatment.