The Goldenacre
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3.8 • 9 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A bitter journalist and troubled art expert risk their lives to find the connection between a legendary painting and a series of rash murders in this “riveting, brutal journey into the high-stakes world of legacy art and inherited wealth” (Denise Mina, author of Conviction).
Thomas Tallis, inspector of provenance, has just arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland, to authenticate The Goldenacre, a masterpiece by iconic Scottish architect and painter Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Still dealing with a miserable divorce and the fallout from a disastrous job in London, Tallis is eager to sign off on the painting and leave. It should be simple, as the painting has been owned by one noble family since the ’20s. But then a horrifying parcel arrives on Tallis’s desk, and the threatening message is clear: someone doesn’t want him inspecting the painting. Now that Tallis sees lives are in danger, he has no choice but to stay until the investigation is complete.
Meanwhile, gruesome murders are plaguing Edinburgh. First, a Scottish painter of great renown. Next, an Edinburgh City Counsellor. Battle-hardened newspaper reporter Shona Sandison is on the case, even as her beloved industry shrinks around her. Shona doesn’t care who she steps on to get the best story, and she soon uncovers a link between The Goldenacre and the murders. As Tallis’s personal crises reach a fever pitch, Shona struggles to enlist his help in understanding how the painting is mixed up in all this violence before either one of them becomes the next victim.
Pensive, lush, and tragic, The Goldenacre is a heartbroken love letter to Edinburgh, and an unpredictable, gorgeously plotted mystery to savor.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in Edinburgh, this outstanding mystery thriller from Miller (The Blue Horse) focuses on two damaged individuals' compulsive search for truth as their lives disintegrate around them. Thomas Tallis, an art expert assigned to confirm the authenticity of a multimillion-dollar painting, The Goldenacre, has been fired from his London curating job under mysterious circumstances. His wife is filing for divorce, he has no access to the young son he loves, and his father—an MI6 operative—is a disembodied voicemail that never replies. Shona Sandison, an old-school crime reporter for the Edinburgh Post, is all about legwork, except that she's semi-disabled from an earlier on-assignment attack. While Sandison investigates the murder of a local artist and then a city councilman, the Post's spiraling demise threatens to make her expendable. Tallis digs deeper into the provenance of The Goldenacre, his path ultimately intersecting with Sandison's. Together they unearth layers of lies, corruption, and deceit. In a style recalling the brutal dreariness of le Carré, Miller describes a pivotal character as "sharp and severe as a snapped bone." It's also an apt description of this biting tale of society in decline. Noir fans won't want to miss it.
