From Publishers Weekly
British author Gleeson's tepid second historical mystery follows the same fundamental formula as 2003's The Grenadillo Box : a skilled craftsman (there a cabinetmaker, here a portraitist) is ensconced at the estate of a wealthy British family when a brutal murder occurs. In both cases, the tradesman is charged with finding the culprit. Joshua Pope is commissioned to paint a wedding portrait of Herbert Bentnick and his betrothed, the luminous Sabine Mercier. During the sittings, Sabine insists on wearing an unusual emerald necklace fashioned into the shape of a serpent, even though it's reputed to bring disaster to any who wear it. When a stranger is found dead in the conservatory and the necklace disappears, Joshua, suspected of the theft, is forced to investigate. He stumbles about in a sea of red herrings, eventually uncovering the truth some chapters after many readers have done so. The author's depiction of Georgian England rings true in every lush detail. But the crucial elements that define a mystery - plot, character, passion - never rise above the ordinary. Indeed, the novel puts one in mind of an 18th-century quadrille, full of elaborate turns and repetitious step sequences - beautiful, stately, mannered, but lacking in depth.
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From
Starred Review Too many historical mysteries read as if the author, having laboriously culled period details from secondary sources, feels obligated to force-feed the findings to his or her audience. Gleeson, on the other hand, is one of a very few history--mystery writers who bring an era to life by utilizing their own deep knowledge of a period's actual artifacts. Author of the popular nonfiction book The Arcanum (1999), about the search for the recipe for porcelain, Gleeson knows her stuff: she worked at Sotheby's in London and wrote on art and antiques for House and Garden for seven years. In her debut mystery, The Grenadillo Box (2003), she centered the story on an apprentice to Thomas Chippendale. This time, Gleeson again highlights the eighteenth century but with a new, equally intriguing hero: fictional London portrait painter Joshua Pope, portrayed as a peer of Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. What makes Gleeson an especially exciting writer is the way she couples an engaging whodunit plot (a body is found in the pineapple conservatory of a stately home) with a wealth of fascinating howdunit information. Readers learn, for example, of the craze for pineapples in eighteenth-century England, of the psychological and social skills needed in portrait work, and a great deal, all intriguing, about how to mix paints and apply brushstrokes. Top-notch. Connie Fletcher
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