Audiobooks by B. A. Shapiro

From bestselling author B. A. Shapiro, a gripping novel that follows six mysterious characters whose lives intersect when a tragedy occurs at the storage facility where they all rent units. In Metropolis we meet six unforgettable characters who never would have met if not for their rental units at Metropolis Storage Warehouse. When a harrowing accident—or is it an accident?—occurs in the building, each character is forced to consider their life circumstances: Serge, a mentally unstable but brilliant street photographer who lives in his unit; Zach, the storage facility owner and an ex-drug dealer, who purchases Serge’s undeveloped photographs and discovers they contain clues to the mysterious accident; Marta, an undocumented immigrant hiding from ICE in her unit; Liddy, an abused wife and mother, who is responsible for the accident, unless she intended it; Jason, a lawyer who has left his big firm and now practices out of his unit; and Rose, the office manager who takes kickbacks to let people live in the facility and has her own disintegrating family to deal with. The characters have different backgrounds: they are different races and religions; they’re young, and they’re not so young; they are rich, poor, and somewhere in the middle. As they dip in and out of one another’s stories and struggle to salvage their own lives—and discover the truth behind the accident—Metropolis traces how their interlocking narratives connect them and tear them apart. B. A. Shapiro has wrapped an ensemble cast around a mystery that thematically explores the myth of “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps” in current day America.

B. A. Shapiro (Author), Ana Osorio, Erin Spencer, Hillary Huber, Mirron Willis, Sean Pratt, Will Collyer (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Collector's Apprentice: A Novel

It's the summer of 1922, and nineteen-year-old Paulien Mertens finds herself in Paris-broke, disowned, and completely alone. Everyone in Belgium, including her own family, believes she stole millions in a sophisticated con game perpetrated by her then-fiance, George Everard. To protect herself from the law and the wrath of those who lost everything, she creates a new identity, a Frenchwoman named Vivienne Gregsby, and sets out to recover her father's art collection, prove her innocence-and exact revenge on George. When the eccentric and wealthy American art collector Edwin Bradley, who is based on real life museum founder Albert Barnes, offers Vivienne the perfect job, she is soon caught up in the Parisian world of post-Impressionists and expatriates-including Gertrude Stein and Henri Matisse, with whom Vivienne becomes romantically entwined. As she travels between Paris and Philadelphia, where Bradley is building an art museum, her life becomes even more complicated: George returns with unclear motives . . . and then Vivienne is arrested for Bradley's murder. B. A. Shapiro has made the historical art thriller her own. In The Collector's Apprentice, she gives us an unforgettable tale about the lengths to which people will go for their obsession, whether it be art, money, love, or vengeance.

B. A. Shapiro (Author), Xe Sands (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Muralist

From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Art Forger come a thrilling new novel of art, history, love, and politics that traces the life and mysterious disappearance of a brilliant young artist on the eve of World War II. Alizee Benoit, an American painter working for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) vanishes in New York City in 1940 amid personal and political turmoil. No one knows that happened to her. Not her Jewish family living in German-occupied France. Not her artistic patron and political compatriot, Eleanor Roosevelt. Not her close-nit group of friends, including Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Lee Krasner. And, some seventy years later, not her great-niece, Danielle Abrams, who while working at Christie's auction house uncovers enigmatic paintings hidden behind recently found works by those now famous Abstract Expressionist artists. Do they hold answers to the questions surrounding her missing aunt? Entwining the live of both historical and fictional characters, and moving between the past and the present, The Muralist plunges readers into the divisiveness of prewar politics and the largely forgotten plight of European refugees refused entrance to the United States. It captures both the inner working of todays New York art scene and the beginnings of the vibrant and quintessentially American school of Abstract Expressionism. B.A. Shaprio is a master at telling a gripping story while exploring provocative themes. In Alezee and Danielle she has created two unforgettable women, artists both, who compel us to ask, What happens when luminous talent collides with inexorable historical forces? Does great art have the power to change the world? And to what lengths should a person to thwart evil?

B. A. Shapiro (Author), Xe Sands (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Art Forger

On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art today worth over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history, and Claire Roth, a struggling young artist, is about to discover that there's more to this crime than meets the eye. Making a living reproducing famous artworks for a popular online retailer and desperate to improve her situation, Claire is lured into a Faustian bargain with Aiden Markel, a powerful gallery owner. She agrees to forge a painting, a Degas masterpiece stolen from the Gardner Museum, in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But when that very same long-missing Degas painting is delivered to Claire's studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery. Her desperate search for the truth leads Claire into a labyrinth of deceit where secrets hidden since the late nineteenth century may be the only evidence that can now save her life.

B. A. Shapiro (Author), Xe Sands (Narrator)

Audiobook