Excerpt from THE FORGER OF MARSEILLE, a novel, by Linda Joy Myers   What’s in a Name? That October of 1939, autumn transformed Paris into a lush painting. The trees didn’t know of war, the leaves a magical yellow, crimson, and amber. Six weeks after war started, the people of the City of Light continued to dance and eat and sing in the streets, wearing optimism and cheer like a new dress. Except for bomb shelters spread through the city and uniformed soldiers sitting in cafés, Paris seemed the same as before the war, people going to work and enjoying the theater and cabarets, gas mask cases cast aside as they determined not to be dour simply because there was a war raging in Poland, far, far away. The most painful reminders of the war were the shuttered museums, empty of the art that made up the soul of Paris. Without Van Gogh and Matisse, Monet and Renoir, and art that spoke of culture and history, Simone felt bereft. And the Winged Victory. She’d flown to safety in the countryside where she’d be safe along with her sister, the Venus de Milo. When would the world see them again? As…