Woman on Fire

Woman on Fire, written by Lisa Barr and published in 2022, is a mystery and thriller novel centered on historical figures and topics, most notably German Expressionism and Nazi Germany. As the novel follows investigative journalist Jules Roth as she undertakes the difficult task of returning Nazi-stolen art to its rightful owners, the narrative involves thematic elements that include the inspirational effects of the creation of art, the monetary aspects of art dealership, healing the wounds of the Holocaust, and the ethics of investigative journalism.

Lisa Barr is a New York Times best-selling author. She has written two previous novels, The Unbreakables (2019) and Fugitive Colors (2012), the latter of which won an Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) gold medal in “Best Literary Fiction” in 2014. Lisa Barr has also worked as a journalist and editor for The Chicago Sun Times and as an editor for The Jerusalem Post, Today’s Chicago Woman, and Moment Magazine.

This guide references the HarperCollins 2022 edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide reference sexual abuse and sex trafficking, as well as suicidal ideation and alcohol and heroin addiction.

Plot Summary

In Germany in 1939, the renowned German Expressionist painter, Ernst Engel, arrives at the home of Anika Baum (née Lang), the mistress of a wealthy Jewish banker, Arno Baum, with whom Anika has a son named Ellis Baum. Anika poses as the model for Engel’s last great painting before the Nazis arrest him. His creation is called Woman on Fire. The painting changes many hands throughout its long history and eventually lands in the hands of Carl Geisler, along with several other Nazi-stolen artworks.

In the present, Jules Roth is a young and eager woman who wants to get a job working with Dan Mansfield at the Chicago Chronicle. She does not have an appointment, however. Nevertheless, she sees Dan and attempts to impress him with her credentials. When that doesn’t work, she reveals that she was the Anonymous Girl who helped break up a sex trafficking ring in her high school. This revelation, coupled with her tenacity, gets her a job working with Dan.

Soon thereafter, Dan gets a call from Ellis Baum, who needs a favor. He needs Dan’s help tracking down Woman on Fire. Ellis is dying of lung cancer, and he wants to see the image of his mother one last time before he dies. A German newspaper, Spotlight, has reported a major art theft and murder. The murdered man was Carl Geisler, the son of the notorious Nazi art thief, Helmuth Geisler. Ellis believes that the painting he’s seeking may be among the thousands stolen from Geisler’s apartment in Munich, Germany. Dan enlists Jules’s help. Ellis enlists the help of his grandson, Adam, who was once a famous artist, to contact Margaux de Laurent, a well-known art gallerist, to gain access to the art world. Adam has been in seclusion the last four years after he nearly died of a heroin overdose. Ellis, Dan, and Jules go to Montana to see Adam and plan how best to find the painting.

Meanwhile, Margaux de Laurent is the one who murdered Geisler to get her hands on not only hundreds of precious pieces of art, but specifically to get Woman on Fire. Her grandfather, Charles de Laurent, once owned the painting. He is the one who established the many art galleries around the world that Margaux has inherited. While she wants Woman on Fire for sentimental reasons, she wants to sell the other paintings acquired from Geisler on the black market to save the de Laurent galleries her father nearly bankrupted before his death because of his frivolous lifestyle. Margaux learned of the trove of artworks in Geisler’s apartment because she has a masterful computer hacker, Wyatt Ross, at her disposal.

In Montana, Ellis, Dan, Jules, and Adam devise a plan. First, they will go to Amsterdam and enlist the help of a great art detective, Bram Bakker. Dan will help Jules investigate behind the scenes while she goes undercover as a journalist doing a piece on great European art galleries. Adam will teach Jules about art, and he will reenter the art world as an artist. He warns everyone about Margaux. He thinks she may possibly be after the painting and that she is a conniving and manipulative woman without scruples.

The team goes to Amsterdam and speaks with Bram Bakker. Jules goes off on her own, contrary to Dan’s rules, and interviews a gallerist and former employee of Margaux’s, Carice Van der Pol. Jules attempts to use her cover story with Carice, who quickly discerns that there is more going on. She is openly afraid of Margaux and warns Jules about getting involved with her. When Dan finds out what Jules did, he is livid but does not fire her. Adam contacts Margaux. Adam is adamant that things with them will not return to the way they were—they will not sleep together, and there will be no drugs involved. She accepts, believing she will still be able to seduce him later. The team learns that the painting was once owned by a wealthy German family and go to speak to one of the relatives in Berlin. From him, they learn that his grandfather had harbored Ellis’s father’s family for a while before the Nazis discovered them.

After a while, Wyatt discovers who Jules is from the bugs he placed in Carice’s gallery. Not only does he discover who Jules is, but he also identifies the rest of the investigative team. He learns that they have enlisted Bakker’s help to find the painting, and that they have acquired a photo from Spotlight that could implicate Margaux in Geisler’s murder. Margaux is angry that they are looking for the painting, and she is hurt that Adam is against her. She uses Wyatt to track down Dan, whom she murders in his hotel room, making it look like Dan died by suicide. She then goes after Jules.

In the meantime, Ellis falls into a coma and Jules and Adam fall in love. Adam confesses to Jules that he knows Margaux murdered her own father, and now with Dan’s disappearance, they need to be extra careful. Jules has learned from researching the Dassel and Baum families that there is a surviving relative to both, Lillian Dassel (née Baum). Jules and her mother, Liz Roth, go to interview her. They learn that Lillian has the true painting—the other is a forgery. Lillian doesn’t say where the painting is, however.

While Jules and the others chase leads, Margaux enlists the help of a master art forger, who tells her the painting of Woman on Fire that she has is a forgery. Margaux has Wyatt kill him later by hacking his Tesla and deactivating the brakes.

Margaux is getting ready for a large exhibition at Art Basel in Miami where she will exhibit Adam’s new paintings and unveil Woman on Fire. In the meantime, she has tracked down Jules and kidnapped Jules’s mother. Margaux forces Jules to work for her in destroying all evidence against her and finding the real painting. Jules makes hard copies of all her and Dan’s materials and has Dan’s secretary hide them away before she gives Margaux everything.

After the exhibition in Miami, Margaux kidnaps Jules and takes her to Germany to see Lillian. Lillian tells them that the painting is in the old Dassel Schloss near Berlin. They go out to the Schloss and retrieve the painting. Jules hides a nail in her pocket, and when she gets the chance, attacks and stabs Margaux in the neck before Margaux can shoot her. Margaux dies, and Jules gets away with the painting.

Jules returns to Manhattan to see Ellis. He is out of his coma but is now blind. Jules and Adam describe the painting to him. He dies shortly thereafter. At his memorial, Jules unveils the true Woman on Fire, which she dedicates to Ellis and the artists who were silenced under the Nazi regime. Adam shows Jules the shoes Ellis designed specifically for her. He named them after her: “The Jules—a woman on fire” (392).