I like the premise of the story - a post-WW2 spy and art hunt as Austria tries to rebuild itself - but it struggled to keep my attention and I found myself continually reading-reading sections trying to follow it, and just kept losing interest.

There were so many sections of either thoughts or reminiscing of the characters or location and art descriptions that got so wordy and sort of rambled, I lost often the intent of what was going on. It made the story drag quite a bit. At the same time, oddly where detail was needed, it was often left out when it came to what was actually happening in the story - they’d go from sitting to all the sudden walking; thinking about how to get in a shop stealthily to all the sudden being inside; hearing a shot and staggering but no explanation of whether he was actually shot or where he was shot until pages later; etc. Just a constant vagueness. I kept rereading thinking I had missed something that I didn’t, which made me lose even more interest. It was just odd.

All in all a much slower book than I anticipated for a spy-focused novel and so much rereading for bypassed detail it was frustrating.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are mine.