The Swan Thieves: A Novel

Robert Oliver, a renowned painter, has brutally attacked a canvas in the National Gallery of Art. From the confines of his hospital room, Oliver maintains a stubborn silence, offering only the briefest explanation before he stops speaking altogether: "I did it for her."
But who is she? Andrew Marlow, a psychiatrist, prides himself on his ability to make even a stone talk, but he gets nowhere with Oliver. Driven at first by professional curiosity, and then by a determination that disrupts his ordered, careful world, Marlow embarks on an unconventional pursuit of the answers his patient won't provide, and on a journey into the lies of the women Oliver left behind.