The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

For the young Theo Decker, left shiftless and alone after the horrific death of his mother in an explosion at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, that life-defining picture is Carel Fabritius’ The Goldfinch. Retrieved by Theo in the aftermath of the blast, somehow he never finds the courage to return it to its rightful owners.

And thus begins Theo Decker’s descent into crime…

Moving seamlessly from the frantic whirl of New York to the twitchy desert heat of Las Vegas, and from the archaic plunder of a downtown antiques store to the bohemian drawing rooms of high society Manhattan, Donna Tartt’s dazzling third novel tracks Theo’s precarious journey through 21^st century America. It is a journey that will combine love and heartache with police tape and shoot-outs, and confirms its author’s place as one of the great contemporary American novelists.