Many scholars may find “The Muralist” a little light, but intelligent mystery readers and armchair history buffs should relish this second novel by B.A. Shapiro.

The story is set in two time periods: 1939 into the 1940s and today. The muralist is Alizée Benoit, a 21-year-old artist living in New York City as the abstract expressionist movement is dawning. She left her family in France after Hitler’s Entartete Kunst, or Degenerate Art Show, to safely pursue her passion for modernist painting.

When the narrative jumps to 2015, it’s told by Alizée’s grandniece, Danielle Abrams, who has a job at Christie’s and is an aspiring painter herself. Danielle idolizes her great-aunt, but little is known about Alizée because she disappeared just before America entered World War II. Danielle is determined to find out what happened.

Switch to 1939 and Alizée is employed by the Works Progress Administration, studying with Hans Hofmann and drinking at a bar called the Jumble Shop with her “gang”: Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. Most will recognize these names as towering figures in 20th century art history, but Ms. Shapiro has them hanging out with her fictional character Alizée. On one hand the dialogue between these young artists is breezy, a bit like “Gidget Goes to Greenwich Village.” On the other hand, they are a little too prescient about the coming importance of their work.

But from here Ms. Shapiro’s tale deepens and she does a number of things exceedingly well. Alizée’s family — a brother, the aunt and uncle who raised her, and beloved cousins — are sending letters from Europe. “Most believe if Hitler dares to step on French soil he will be immediately vanquished,” one relative writes in 1939. But as Jews living in France they want out and ask Alizée to get them American visas.

Ms. Shapiro gradually builds an awareness of Hitler’s course and the reluctance of many in the United States to accept refugees. There are concerns about the “Fifth Column,” Nazi spies who are pretending to be innocent victims, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt tell his wife, “We’ve got to be careful about immigrants taking jobs from Americans.” Eleanor replies: “People forget that Americans suffer when we turn our backs on other countries.”

But Alizée discovers many people working to keep the quotas low. These include the assistant secretary of state, Breckinridge Long, who without the president’s knowledge has been giving instructions about how to keep the maximum number of refugees out of the country.

This is real history. Had Long granted the visas, 190,000 people would have escaped the Nazi massacre. Ms. Shapiro injects into these circumstances Alizée’s plans to get the visas. Her surprising decisions lead to action-packed, propulsive reading.

Meanwhile, Danielle’s quest for answers about her aunt takes her to some fascinating landmarks. She visits the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center on Long Island and the Memorial de la Shoah, the Holocaust museum in Paris with its “huge cylinder evocative of the Auschwitz chimneys.”

Also in Paris she finds Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, a church where once thousands of Protestants were killed by a Catholic mob. “Sixteenth century, 20th century, 21st century. Some things never change,” Ms. Shapiro writes.

Novels are often engaging while being read then quickly forgotten, but “The Muralist” leads to a desire for more: To learn about the abstract expressionists, to see paint on canvas up close and personal, and to be aware of the world’s current refugee crisis in hopes that the history recounted in Ms. Shapiro’s book will never be repeated.

Margie Romero is communications manager at Pittsburgh Public Theater.

First Published: December 27, 2015, 5:00 a.m.