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Bestselling novelist Elizabeth Kostova reads from her second book, The Swan Thieves.

Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel, The Historian, became a runaway bestseller, as its unique blend of scholarly research and fanciful storytelling brought a new twist to the classic tale of Vlad the Impaler, better known as Dracula. Her new novel, The Swan Thieves, uses a similar technique to enter the world of fine art, from the late 19th century to the late 20th century.

The novel's central figure, psychiatrist Andrew Marlowe, devoted to his profession and the painting hobby he loves, has a solitary but ordered life. When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient, Marlow finds that order destroyed. Desperate to understand the secret that torments the genius, he embarks on a journey that leads him into the lives of the women closest to Oliver and a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism.