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Title details for The Lady Waiting by Magdalena Zyzak - Available

The Lady Waiting

A Novel

by Magdalena Zyzak
Zuzanna Szadkowski
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
2 of 2 copies available
“A breakneck romp of a novel with a stolen Vermeer, a tangled love triangle, a half-baked heist and enough depraved opulence to make Gatsby gasp.” —People
“This novel pops— Cosmopolitan, sexy, and funny.” —Percival Everett, New York Times-bestselling author of James

The White Lotus meets The Talented Mr. Ripley in this high-spirited novel of a stolen Vermeer, a Polish transplant in LA, and the charismatic couple who seduce her into a misguided international heist
One bright Los Angeles day, a young Polish émigré named Viva is driving along the freeway when she’s flagged down by a dazzling, disheveled woman in green chiffon. The woman is Bobby Sleeper, a fellow Eastern European and an erstwhile art gallerist with a mysterious background and even more mysterious filmmaker husband. Within days the couple hire Viva as their assistant, then enlist her as an accomplice in an improbable scheme involving a long-lost Vermeer masterwork, a multi-million-dollar reward, and several shadowy ex-husbands.
As Bobby and her husband weave her ever more tightly into their web, Viva is swept up in an escapade that’s one part art heist, one part love triangle, and one part education of a felon. Entranced by their lifestyle, alarmed by their ramshackle scam, Viva realizes she’s out of her depth—and that only luck, cunning, and her own hustler’s instinct can save her from disaster. Careening from the canyons of LA to the canals of Venice, The Lady Waiting is a page-turning caper, a cavalcade of twenty-first-century sins—rapacious capitalism, shameless fraud, and atrocious behavior—and a showcase for three of the biggest and most unforgettable characters in recent fiction.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 7, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593829004
      • File size: 293877 KB
      • Duration: 10:12:14

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 25, 2024
      Zyzak (The Ballad of Barnabas Pierkiel) returns with a rollicking tale of sex, money, and art theft. One afternoon in Los Angeles, Polish immigrant Wioletta picks up a glamorous hitchhiker, a woman named Bobby Sleeper. Wioletta introduces herself as Viva, and Bobby offers her a job as her live-in assistant. Bobby; her retired filmmaker husband, Sebastian; and their flamboyant houseguest, a playwright named Lance, introduce Viva to sprezzatura (“the art of studied nonchalance,” Lance explains). She quickly takes to their glitzy lifestyle, striking up sexual relationships with both Sebastian and Bobby, the latter of whom uses Viva as an accomplice to “fake-steal” a valuable Vermeer from her ex-husband, a Russian oligarch. The painting itself is missing from a German museum, and Bobby and the oligarch have a scheme going to split the multimillion-dollar reward for its safe return. Things take a turn, however, when one of Bobby’s other ex-husbands, Łyski, sneaks into her home, steals the painting from her closet, and absconds with it to Italy. Zyzak constructs a playful narrative, shuttling characters across the globe and into each other’s beds, and she takes advantage of Bobby’s loose-cannon nature to raise the stakes again and again. This is great fun. Agent: Richard Abate, 3 Arts.

    • Library Journal

      May 31, 2024

      Polish immigrant Viva is struggling to make a living in Los Angeles. One day, she picks up a glamorously dressed woman hitchhiking on the 101 freeway. Eccentric Bobby talks nonstop in non sequiturs. She eventually offers Viva a job as a household assistant, running errands and organizing their freewheeling household--Bobby, her filmmaker husband Sebastian, and their friend Lance. As Viva becomes ever more entwined in Bobby and Sebastian's life, she agrees to help Bobby with an outrageous plan to collect the reward for the return of a stolen painting. Together, they plan on fake-stealing the painting in order to return it. Before they can do so, however, Bobby's ex-husband steals the painting himself and takes it to Poland. They go after him to get it back, and a complicated chase across Europe ensues. Zuzanna Szadkowski ably gives voice to Zyzak's (The Ballad of Barnabas Pierkiel) hilarious set of characters in this romp of a caper novel. Szadkowski's variety of voices and accents, combined with her well-timed pacing, makes for an entertaining listen. VERDICT A clever farce of a novel, full of sex, nonstop action, art theft, and lots of glitz and glam. This fun audio is recommended for all collections.--Joanna M. Burkhardt

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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