"The Last of the Stanfields" by Marc Levy, summary

The novel, published in 2017, centers on the mystery of two families whose destinies intertwine against the backdrop of three historical eras: the partisan struggle in France during World War II, the Baltimore journalist revolt of 1980, and a detective investigation in 2016.

Mysterious messages from the past

In October 2016, thirty-five-year-old British journalist Eleanor-Rigby Donovan finds an anonymous letter in the mailbox of her London apartment. The author claims that her recently deceased mother, a modest high school chemistry teacher, committed a crime thirty-five years ago and hid a vast fortune. The letter instructs her to destroy the text and travel overseas. Soon after, she receives a note specifying a precise time and place to meet: October 22nd, at Sailor’s Cafe in the harbor of Baltimore.

Meanwhile, in the Canadian town of Magog, thirty-five-year-old cabinetmaker George Harrison Collins pulls a similar anonymous message from an envelope. The unknown correspondent urges him to uncover the truth about the origins and fate of his missing father, whom George has never met.

George Harrison visits his mother, May, in a Quebec nursing home. She suffers from progressive dementia and only occasionally regains consciousness. When asked directly about her past, May manages to whisper to her son that his father never knew of his existence. Shortly afterward, George receives a note summoning him to the same Baltimore café.

At the appointed time, the young people meet at the same table in Sailor’s Café. Initially, they are wary of each other. Glancing at an archival photograph on the wall, they are astonished to see their mothers, Sally-Ann and May, embracing in the midst of a boisterous celebration thirty-five years ago. The heroes join forces to reconstruct the chain of events.

Military cache and rescue in the Pyrenees

The origins of this family drama date back to the spring of 1944. A young American volunteer, Robert Stanfield, parachuted over occupied France near Montauban to coordinate arms deliveries to the Resistance fighters. His plane crashed, killing the pilot. The partisans sheltered the wounded Robert in a forest hunting lodge.

In the gatehouse, Robert meets Sam Goldstein, a fugitive Lyon art dealer, and his sixteen-year-old daughter, Hannah. Sam shows the American a secret hiding place in the basement behind a wooden beam, where a metal tube containing ten priceless paintings is hidden, including works by Rembrandt, Manet, Cézanne, Delacroix, Fragonard, Degas, and Sam’s favorite work, Edward Hopper’s "Girl at the Window." Sam and Robert make an unspoken agreement: in the event of Sam’s death, the American agrees to retrieve Hannah and preserve the collection.

In June 1944, Robert and his partner, Titon, are detained by collaborationist militia. Titon is killed on the spot, and Robert is brutally tortured by Inspector Valle, who demands he reveal the unit’s location. The collaborationists storm the guardhouse. Sam manages to seal Hannah in a narrow tunnel behind some crates, then commits suicide to avoid capture.

Robert escapes from captivity, reaches the ransacked guardhouse, and rescues Hannah, who is suffocating in the basement. He secretly takes Hopper’s painting from the tube and hides it in his knapsack. Together, they steal a truck from a local traitor, cross the Pyrenees into Spain, and marry at the American consulate in Madrid, granting Hannah U.S. citizenship.

New York Takeoff and the Price of Silence

Arriving in New York, the couple learns that Robert’s father has gambled away the family’s entire estate, and the family estate in Baltimore is mortgaged to creditors. Robert begins working as a simple chauffeur, while Hannah finds work as an assistant to the compassionate British gallery owner John Glover. To set up a liquor operation, Robert borrows money from Glover, leaving the exported Hopper painting as collateral.

In 1946, Hannah traveled to France, discovered her father’s grave, and retrieved the remaining nine paintings from their hiding place, discovering that "Girl at a Window" was missing. She sold the Fragonard painting for six hundred thousand dollars to the Perl collectors and secretly purchased the Stanfield family castle in Baltimore.

Glover hands over the gallery’s management to Hannah, and before his death in 1950, he bequeaths his entire estate to her. While inventorying Glover’s London vault, Hannah discovers a hidden Hopper painting. She learns that Robert brought the painting back in 1944, and a terrible suspicion settles in her mind: her husband betrayed the partisans for his own salvation.

Believing herself infertile, Hannah adopts a newborn girl, Sally-Anne, but soon miraculously gives birth to a son, Edward. Hannah locks Hopper’s painting in her husband’s safe, sealed in a box, forcing him to swear on the children’s lives never to open it.

When Sally-Anne turns twelve, she overhears a heated argument between her parents. She learns of her father’s infidelities, the theft of a painting, and accusations of treason. Shaken by the collapse of her ideals, Sally-Anne is filled with contempt for her family. To prevent publicity, her mother sends her to an English boarding school.

Baltimore Riot

In the fall of 1980, a mature Sally-Ann returns to Baltimore. She becomes close with the talented journalist May Collins. The two rent a harborside loft and begin publishing a weekly investigative magazine called The Independent. Sally-Ann openly rebels against high society. Hannah Stanfield convinces the bank to refuse the newspaper’s loan and offers her daughter compensation in exchange for her immediate departure from the country.

Meanwhile, Sally-Ann’s brother, Edward, seduces May to spy on his sister, then cynically abandons her for an engagement to wealthy heiress Jennifer Zimmer.

Sally-Anne and May decide to take revenge. On October 21, 1980, during a lavish masquerade ball at Stanfield Castle, they infiltrate the second floor. While May secludes herself with Edward in the living room, distracting him, Sally-Anne unlocks her father’s safe, stealing $150,000 in Treasury bonds, a box containing a Hopper painting, and a bottle of vintage 1926 whiskey.

Sally-Anne publishes the first issue of The Independent with an exposé about the Stanfields’ dark past. Realizing who committed the theft, Edward tracks down May and breaks into the editorial loft. He demands the return of the bonds and the masterpiece, threatening prison, and claims to know May is pregnant with his child, demanding an abortion. Furious, Sally-Anne attacks her brother. During the scuffle, Edward falls down the 120 steep steps of the staircase, breaking the base of his skull.

The friends secretly transport the dying Edward to the hospital emergency room, and May sinks his car at the docks. Hannah realizes what has happened and orders Sally-Anne to leave the United States immediately.

Before leaving, Sally-Anne rents a safe deposit box from Mr. Clarke’s Baltimore bank, places the Hopper painting in it, leaves all the bonds to the pregnant May, and goes to London to live with Ray Donovan. There, she takes her grandfather’s maiden name, Goldstein, gets a job teaching chemistry, and gives birth to twins, Eleanor-Rigby and Michel, and later to a daughter, Maggie. May leaves for Canada and gives birth to a son, George-Harrison. Edward, who has fallen into a coma, spends ten years in a hospital before dying. Hannah sells off all her possessions to pay for his treatment and then fakes her own disappearance.

Finding a legacy

In 2016, Elinor Rigby and George Harrison use archives, old newspaper accounts, and the testimony of the historian Shylock to reconstruct the chronology of events. They travel to Magog, where local antiquarian Pierre Tremblay gives them Sally-Ann’s preserved diary. The entries reveal that Sally-Ann was adopted, and George Harrison’s father was Edward Stanfield. Thus, there is no blood relation between Elinor and George.

The heroes return to Mr. Clarke’s bank in Baltimore. Presenting a family tree, Eleanor-Rigby gains access to the safe-deposit box where the undamaged painting "Girl at a Window" has been kept for thirty-six years. Clarke’s elderly secretary gives the girl a renewed safe-keeping agreement. Glancing at the calligraphic handwriting on the envelope, Eleanor-Rigby realizes that the banker’s elderly assistant is ninety-year-old Hannah Stanfield, who faked her own death and orchestrated the letter-writing campaign to pass the masterpiece on to her legitimate grandchildren.

In the epilogue, Eleanor-Rigby and George-Harrison marry in Croydon. Hannah attends the wedding incognito, after which she visits her daughter’s grave. The newlyweds settle in Magog, raising their first child, Sam, in whose room a Hopper painting finds a permanent home.