A Grasp of Kaspar - Softcover

Baxandall, Michael

2.43

7 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0711231591 ISBN 13: 9780711231597

Publisher: Frances Lincoln, 2010

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Munich 1956. The war is over but not forgotten. The West German economic miracle is underway, and American investors are looking for opportunities, but some companies have skeletons in the closet. When Will Briggs agrees to investigate a German textile company for an American friend, he half-knows how deep and how murky the water might be. But he is intrigued by the challenge, and he could use the money to fund his own historical research. Traveling first to Switzerland to investigate what he thinks may be tax fraud, he becomes involved with Mechtild, the mercurial wife of the boss, Kaspar Leinberger. Discovered eavesdropping on a suspicious conversation about Nazi gold, he is pursued to Italy where war crimes replace tax fraud as the focus of his quest . . . Raising eternal questions about historical truth, witch hunts, and the use of evidence, A Grasp of Kaspar is an engrossing thriller reminiscent of John Buchan, Erskine Childers, and John le Carr�.

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About the Author:

Michael Baxandall was probably the most influential art historian of his generation. In books including Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany, Patterns of Intention and Tiepolo and the Pictorial Intelligence (with Svetlana Alpers) he expanded the discipline's range of topics, approaches, and ways of writing. A professor at London's Warburg Institute and the University of California at Berkeley, he was also a member of the British Academy, and was awarded the Mitchell Prize, and prizes by the University of Hamburg, and the MacArthur Foundation. He died in 2008.

Review:

A solid thriller offering mystery mixed with ingenious remarks on history and language.

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