Monday, January 9, 2012

Daily Kindle Bargains - After the Auction by Linda Frank


After the Auction by Linda Frank is available on Kindle for just $3.82.

Description:

Lily Kovner could not have dreamed that research for a magazine assignment would resurrect a searing memory from her childhood.

A fleeting glimpse of a family treasure looted by the Nazis launches "Afikomen"--her quest for justice and restitution spanning three continents. Along the way threats, murder and the revelation of a diabolical secret thrust Lily onto an emotional rollercoaster further complicated by the thrill of new romance.

From the Reviewers:

"Linda Frank has written a well-researched historical mystery. Transporting the reader from a New York auction house to Europe and Israel, as the protagonist hunts her family's property looted by the Nazis, Frank captures not only the thrill of the chase, but also the challenges that often surround Holocaust-era cultural property. She shows the moral complexities, the business side of restitution, and also the tremendous difficulties present in researching objects stolen over sixty years ago. By penetrating the minds of her subjects, Linda Frank also captures the strong emotions so often associated with family property taken during the Holocaust."
--Jonathan Petropoulos, John V. Croul Professor of European History, Claremont McKenna College 

"Frank has written a kind of fusion of a Jewish whodunit, a Holocaust memoir and an international treasure hunt....It’s a really good, truly action-packed read, especially for anyone with an interest in Judaica and the world of Nazi-looted art."

--Tom Freudenheim, The Jewish Daily Forward

About the Author:

I've always written.

As a child, I wrote letters (remember those?) and corresponded regularly with my aunts and cousins. I had pen pals, another anachronism in this age of email and texting. I even wrote a letter to Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain to congratulate her on her birthday. No, the queen didn't respond personally. But a letter from her lady-in-waiting on Buckingham Palace stationery landed me a write-up and picture in the local newspaper. In Milwaukee in the 1950s there must have been lots of slow news days!


Eventually, I edited the high school newspaper and the college yearbook, won an essay contest, got a master's degree in journalism. Lots of writing in jobs and my own marketing and PR business and in hosting and producing a cable television show. And my volunteer life: everyone's favorite bulletin editor, publicity chair, and grant writer.


I've published book reviews, a couple of travel pieces on China, and many business articles, including, for seven years, a quarterly column on international business in a statewide magazine. To satisfy the requests of friends and family for email updates, I blogged on our trip to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.


A writer is a reader. A reader develops passions for specific topics and stokes them. My passions lie in eclectic aspects of 20th century history. That childhood fascination with the British Royal Family is one, as my collection of books and memorabilia attests. Some of my reading made me weird as a kid: The New Yorker? Who else dubbed their high school lunch table "the round table at the Algonquin"? I wrote my junior year honors English author term paper on Henry James, a choice not exactly plucked from our curriculum. This Anglophile devoured C.P.Snow's Strangers and Brothers British university-based series by the age of 15.


I've always prized knowledge and education for its own sake, not just as a means to a career or other practical end. However, it came in handy when I competed on "Jeopardy"—you should have seen me rip through as "World History," "Politics," "Journalists and Newspapers," and the Final Jeopardy Category, "Capitals of the World." "Trees and Flowers"? Not so proficient. And, no I don't have a DVD or even a tape: it was 1973.


After the Auction, my first novel, encompasses several subjects that I've researched over the years: Nazi art looting, the kindertransport, the smuggling of refugees and military equipment into Israel before the establishment of the state, Jews who escaped the Nazis by going to Shanghai.


Click here to download After the Auction (or a free sample) to your Kindle.

For the UK version, click here.