“Heaps of mystery and intrigue, a nice love story, and a great plot. Shuker is truly a gifted storyteller.”Terri is a talented art curator, stagnating in a dead end job in London. Her ex-boyfriend, Oliver, is stalking her. A post curating the retrospective of a famous but reclusive artist seems the perfect escape. Portrait painter, Peter Stedding, lives in the mountains of Provence, in a house he … Provence, in a house he shares with his wife, daughter and eccentric sister, Celia. The setting is idyllic; the atmosphere is not. Peter is rude and obstructive, his household strained and silent.
The place holds secrets, stories no-one is allowed to tell. Looking through Peter’s old paintings, Terri finds a tantalising clue and soon she is caught up in a cat and mouse game in search of the truth. But is it ever wise to start digging up the past?
365 pages in print
more
The art of good storytelling demands a number of different talents, and while each writer brings a different style, a different way with words, plot, and the turn of a phrase, that demand always involves fully realized characters, richly evoked time and place, compelling dialogue, and the propulsion of a page-turning plot. This can happen with light fare, dark mystery, literary fiction, or even the latest vampire story, but it must happen. Having read Kathy Shuker’s first book, Deep Water, Thin Ice, I had a certain expectation of excellent storytelling from her, and in this, her latest novel, and she does not disappoint!
Once again setting her story in a picturesque corner of Europe – in this case, Provence, France – she brings together an eclectic group of characters that circle in and around the very specific and sometimes arcane industry of fine art. The protagonist, Terri Challoner, an up-and-coming art curator in the market for a new job, gets an unexpected offer to travel to Provence to curate the retrospective of a high-profile painter, Peter Stedding, well known for his irascibility as well as his deep and profound talent. Currently fending off an ex-boyfriend who’s taken to stalking her, and feeling dead-ended in her job in London, Terri accepts the position and the story begins.
What seems a fairly benign set of circumstances – working in the studio and living in the large mansion of Mr. Stedding, along with a new wife, a twenty-something daughter, an eccentric sister, and a coterie of various estate employees – quickly becomes complicated, as personalities chafe, expectations and boundaries are enforced, and mysteries surrounding the many paintings – and their subjects – come to the fore as Terri attempts to pull the necessary elements together for the exhibit.
Before long, it’s clear those mysteries go deep, and involve everyone working and living at the estate. As Terri begins to investigate further, both for reasons of her work and to clarify her own growing confusion about who all these characters are, what they may or may not have done, and just how she might fit into the picture, the plot takes an ominous turn. When the stalking boyfriend thought to be back in London suddenly reappears, and an old friend now working on the estate seems to have ulterior motives both personally and professionally, what had once been a curiosity becomes a matter of urgency, compelling Terri to step beyond her role as art curator to unravel a decades-long mystery that answers all her questions.
Skuker has not only written a true page-turner, but she’s done it with tremendous depth and nuance. It’s clear her knowledge of the art world is extensive, as she pulls readers into its many moving parts with colorful and descriptive details. The characters are distinct and many-layered, and she knows how to bring them together and pull them apart to create just the right amount of tension and suspense. And just as she did in her first novel, her sense of place is lovely; you can almost see the settings she creates, which imbues the narrative with just the right touch of the visual.
If I were to make one note, I might suggest the prologue is not needed, but that is such a minor note in such a well-told tale that had my interest and attention throughout. Another very satisfying read, from a really wonderful storyteller.