Lead Review
- Book: The Art Fiasco
- Location: Newcastle upon Tyne
- Author: Fiona Veitch Smith
This is no. 5 in the Poppy Denby series and I came to this without having read the previous novels. It easily holds its own.
Popping is up from London and staying with Aunt Dot and her friend Grace in their house in Heaton. She is spending a few days there before heading on to her father’s birthday party in Northumberland. She is a journalist and therefore has a nose for a story AND she is a bit of a sleuth on the side.
Early on we are given a little backstory of Agnes Robson who originally hailed from Ashington Colliery, just up the coast. She is now an impressive, avant-garde artist but the whiff of the death of her art teacher has followed her around like a bad smell. There is a strong sense that she was somehow involved in his untimely death, which occurred in 1897, and we know for sure that he made advances to her when she was only a young teenager. She too is staying with Dot and Grace because the Laing Art Gallery is showing her work. However, at the show, she falls to her death. Poppy happens to have heard raised voices just before Agnes plunged from the cupola.
Of course there is plenty for Poppy to investigate, many threads to pull together, and what makes this story particularly engaging is the era and setting. Newcastle comes to life in the author’s capable hands – it seems her research has been meticulous. I live not far from the city and I could really visualise the locations – and of course it was interesting to see The Laing Art Gallery as it was then. Fashion and mores of the time are beautifully brought to life and the characters are colourfully drawn. Visits to Fenwick’s department store and the Scala Cinema on Chillingham Road really anchor the story in the bygone era.
An excellent novel for anyone who loves cozy crime mysteries (one for fans of M C Beaton’s Agatha Raisin series and Jennifer S Alderson’s Travel Can Be Murder series) and of course ideal for anyone who is familiar with Newcastle upon Tyne and environs! There is a real sense of echoes of footsteps past and the author goes on to say that she has derived much of her sense of era and place from her own family records.
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