Mervyn Cheel, the central character, is a failed artist now an art critic for a provincial newspaper. He is mercenary and amoral, unscrupulous and catty. Also a cheapskate. The plot becomes a matter of who is scamming whom and what deviousness in the art of blackmail is required. Our old friend Braunkopf ('the voonderble vorlt of art') is back again as an ancillary character. A non-Appleby story from Innes. Very amusing, although not really a mystery novel.
Wyatt James
The Holme of the title is an artist who is believed to have died in an African revolution. But he is alive; it is his brother who has been killed and Holme who returns to London to find his remaining paintings selling for large sums, and the proceeds going to his estranged wife Hedda. Holme has reasons for keeping his survival dark. He conspires with the abovementioned Cheel to 'discover' some old paintings of his that were supposed to be destroyesd; but the plot begins to unravel when one of the old paintings turns up intact at the same gallery as the new one. Not very plausible, and it would have been nice to see the ingenious Cheel get off at the end more lightly than he does; but Innes shows his usual deftness in tangling and then untangling the complexities of relationships.
Jon
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.