And she finds an unlikely source to help her do it: a young Nazi soldier, a blackmailer and thief of Dutch art, who now says he wants to desert the German army. To make the sale, Isa will need to learn the art istry of a master forger, before the children can be deported, and before she can be outed as a collaborator. One more forgery, a copy of an exquisite Vermeer, and the Nazis will pay for the rescue of the very children they are trying annihilate. Rook by Sharon Cameron Main Characters Sophia: Bossy Self-centered Independent Rebellious Stubborn LeBlanc: Devious Reserved Baffling Insensitive Determined Rene: Charming Flirtatious Sneaky A Renegade Curious Setting The setting takes place in the sunken city of Paris,France. Isa sells her beautiful forgery to none other than Hitler himself, and on the way to the auction, discovers that Truus is part of a resistance ring working to smuggle Jewish babies out of Amsterdam.īut Truus cannot save more children without money. She sells them a fake-a Rembrandt copy drawn by her talented father-a sale that sets Isa perilously close to the second most hated class of people in Amsterdam: the collaborators. So, when the unpaid taxes threaten her beloved but empty gallery, Isa decides to make the Nazis pay. And masterpiece by masterpiece, the Nazis are buying and stealing her country’s heritage, feeding the Third Reich’s ravenous appetite for culture and art. Instead of leaving a paper with a star-shaped flower behind to taunt his enemies like the original hero, the Rook leaves behind black rook feathers with red tips. The “degenerate” art of the Gallery de Smit is confiscated, the artists in hiding or deported, and her best friend, Truus, flees to join the shadowy Dutch resistance. Except for those who disappear from their prison cells, a red-tipped rook feather left in their place. The hero of this story is the Red Rook, who like the original Pimpernel, rescues those bound for the guillotine, or razor as it’s called in this world. Isa de Smit was raised in the vibrant, glittering world of her parents’ small art gallery in Amsterdam, a hub of beauty, creativity, and expression, until the Nazi occupation wiped the color from her city’s palette.