Ingenious art caper travels from Grantown to Greece in this week's Star Read
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With Italians, Greeks, Scots and the top experts of the British Museum, William Nicoll’s second thriller based around an artwork is as cosmopolitan as his first, and this one ends up at the Parthenon in Athens.
But our Star Read. The Curse Of Minerva (Gladman Publishing), starts much closer to home – in the home of a recently-deceased well-connected lady in Grantown!
First, though, sharp-eyed Helena Tattius of the Greek Lost Cultural Heritage department in Athens spots an interesting watercolour painting by the artist, Lusieri, in a catalogue for an upcoming sale at a Scottish auction house.
It has the rather an intriguing subject, the Greek Parthenon temple … sited on a Scottish island in Loch Leven.
And the Greeks aren’t the only ones interested.
The sharp-eyed Shona O’Leary of the British Museum has also spotted it.
Is it possible festering tensions over the ‘theft’ of the Elgin Marbles surface?
The auction house where the painting is on sale is one readers of William Nicoll’s first book, En Canot And The Accidental Artist, will recognise.
It is where to find the book’s mildly heroic hero Ranald Milngavie – now married to his more-than-best-friend Elspeth who is about to have their twins.
Dragging himself away from his very pregnant partner to pick up the painting from the home of its late owner in Grantown, Ranald reasons it is a weekend job on double time?
And Ranald can’t say no, though later, he may wish he had …
But not long in the painting’s presence, Ranald and work colleague Kenny feel it casting a spell: “Now she was a bubbling cauldron of exotic images, flashing up in front of them like a box of fireworks exploding into life.”
The book’s intricate plot and insights into the international art world, is light-hearted and insightful about the lives of the upper-middle classes.
As with his first novel, William completed this on his commute from Hampshire into London, where he works.
His Scottish background adds an authentic colour as the country plays its part in this fast-moving entertainment.
Cue ingenious twist!
The Curse Of Minerva (Gladman Publishing, £10) is available in Waterstones, Amazon and most retailers' websites.
