Las Animas - Bent County Library District

"Life is good for Atlanta judge Rachel Cutler. She loves her job and her kids, and she remains civil to her ex-husband, Paul. But everything changes when her father, a man who survived the horrors of World War II, dies under strange circumstances - and leaves behind clues to a secret he kept his entire life...a secret about something called the Amber Room." "Desperate to know the truth about her father's suspicious dealings, Rachel takes off for Germany,...

An unlikely World War II platoon has been tasked by FDR with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and returning them to their rightful owners. With the art trapped behind enemy lines, and with the German army under orders to destroy everything as the Reich fell, how could they possibly succeed? But as the Monuments Men, as they were called, found themselves in a race against time, they would risk their lives to protect...

As riveting as a World War II thriller, The Forger's Spell is the true story of Johannes Vermeer and the small-time Dutch painter, Han van Meegeren, who dared to impersonate Vermeer centuries later. The con man's mark was Hermann Goering, one of the most reviled leaders of Nazi Germany and a fanatic collector of art.

"Rome, 1943: University student Marina Tozzi is on her way home when she finds out that her father has been killed for harboring a Jewish artist in their home. Fearful of the consequences, Marina flees to Villa I Tatti, the Florence villa of her father's American friend Bernard Berenson and his partner Belle da Costa Greene, the famed librarian who once curated J.P. Morgan's library. Florence is a hotbed of activity as partisans and Germans fight...

"In 2009, eighty-five-year-old art professor Ludka Zeilonka gets drawn into a political firestorm when her grandson Tommy is among a group of gay Massachusetts teachers fired for allegedly silencing Christian kids in high school classrooms. The ensuing battle to reinstate the teachers raises the specter of Ludka's World War II past--a past she's spent a lifetime trying to forget ... As Ludka's influential family defends Tommy under increasingly vicious...

"The Rape of Europa is an epic journey through seven countries, into the violent whirlwind of fanaticism, greed, and warfare that threatened to wipe out the artistic heritage of Europe. For twelve long years, the Nazis looted and destroyed art on a scale unprecedented in history. But heroic young art historians and curators from America and across Europe fought back with a miraculous campaign to rescue and return millions of lost, hidden and stolen...

A true-life thriller that solves one of the great mysteries of the Cold War.

A captivating dramatic thriller set just after WWII, an all but forgotten true story about a soldier, Joseph Piller, investigating renowned Dutch artist Han van Meegeren who is accused of conspiring with the Nazis. Despite increasing evidence, Piller becomes more and more convinced of Han's innocence and finds himself in the improbable position of fighting to save the life of the colorful man with a mysterious past.

"Paris, 1939: The Nazis think Éliane can't understand German. They're wrong. They think she's merely cataloging the art collection in The Louvre while they steal national treasures for their private collections. They have no idea she's carefully decoding their notes to ensure every painting can be recovered after the war. But Éliane is playing a very dangerous game. Does she dare trust the man she once loved, or will he only betray her once again?...

"The story of art is integral to the story of the rise of Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler, an artist himself, was obsessed with art--in particular, the aesthetic of a purified regime, scoured of 'degenerate' influences that characterized Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. When they came to power in 1933, Hitler and Goebbels set their aesthetic vision into motion and removed degenerate art from German life: artists fled the country; museums were purged;...