The Last Weynfeldt - by Martin Suter (Paperback)

About the Book

"Adrian Weynfeldt is an art expert in an international auction house, a bachelor in his mid-fifties living in a grand Zurich apartment filled with costly paintings and antiques. Always correct and well-mannered, he's given up on love until one night -- entirely out of character for him -- Weynfeldt decides to take home a ravishing but unaccountable young woman. The next morning, he finds her outside on his balcony threatening to jump. Weynfeldt talks her down and soon finds himself falling for this damaged but alluring beauty and his buttoned up existence comes unraveled. As their two lives become entangled, Weynfeldt gets embroiled in an art forgery scheme that threatens to destroy everything he and his prominent family have stood for"--

Book Synopsis

A refined page-turner about the international art market that probes the darker recesses of the heart.

Review Quotes

"Fans of sensitive, slightly aloof Euro-thrillers--think Stefan Zweig or filmmaker Claude Chabrol--will recognize the metier of Swiss writer Suter, who here leavens the sensationalism of crime fiction with psychological insight and melancholy ... Comfort food for readers who crave memorable characters, romance, and touching, drawn-from-life scenes."
-Publishers Weekly

"Swift, edgy ... What distinguishes this work is the air of slightly faded existential elegance, which sets off the modern setting splendidly ... Great for sophisticated suspense fans."
-Library Journal (Starred review)

"A sophisticated and urbane novel with a swanky, dapper European setting that is as much Poe and Chandler as Hitchcock and Truffaut. This is a page-turner all its own, one that asks you to rethink what you thought was too obvious to be true and to reconsider the obvious in case you were wrong. You'll want to reread it as soon as you get to the last page."-André Aciman, author of Out of Egypt and Call Me by Your Name

"Suter manages to cleverly intertwine the public world of art with the private world of love."-Public Books

"Fine art, fine wine, and old money collide with forgery and extortion in Zurich ... Subtly wrought."-Kirkus Reviews

"In this scintillating send-up of the international art market, crisp dialogue propels the action while spotlighting quirks of character ... The plot purrs along like the wheels of a Patek Phillippe watch."-The Arts Fuse

"Stylish, well-crafted and precisely engineered ... like joyously discovering a long-buried treasure ... As it ticks along resolutely from one surprising development to the next, this book touches on themes of mortality and redemption, the age-old question of finding the formula for living a good life."-Winnipeg Free Press

"A wonderful novel about the international art market whose inventive cast includes the super-rich, a faker, a con man, an auction expert and beautiful women."-Milton Esterow, former editor and publisher of ARTnews and author of The Art Stealers

"Set in the midst of that vibrant and bizarre organism known as the art world. A captivating read about a memorable protagonist."-Noah Charney, author of The Art of Forgery and The Art Thief

"A deliciously whimsical tale of love and redemption ... I resented having to put it down when other aspects of life intruded and picked it up eagerly again as soon as I could. And I grinned at the way Suter so skillfully pulled everything together at the end to present an emotionally perfect finale. A delightful piece of work."-John Grant, author of A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir

"An impressive work of intrigue and beauty."-Cleaver Magazine

"The Last Weynfeldt is a must-read. . . . Once started, you will not stop reading until the end. You will probably forget to eat, not answer text messages and miss your stop on the bus."-Süddeutsche Zeitung

"Prose as calculated as a Swiss watch, impeccably drawn characters, first-class intrigues, the eye of a moralist and a clear sense of satire."-L'Express

"A brilliant talent!"-Basler Zeitung

About the Author

Martin Suter, born in Zurich in 1948, is Switzerland's most popular living writer. He is a novelist, screenwriter and newspaper columnist who worked as an advertising copywriter and creative director until 1991 when he decided to concentrate exclusively on writing fiction. Suter has written a dozen novels, many of them best-sellers in Europe and translated into 32 languages. He lives with his family in Zurich.

Steph Morris has been a translator in residence at the Europäisches Übersetzer-Kollegium, in Straelen, Germany.