Preamble
As I read and write and think a lot about detective and crime fiction, I’ve a series of reviews on the theme, and occasionally I review things outside the genre too. This is one of those!
See also
These lists capture other detective/crime stories and characters that I thought of as I was reading this piece. I won’t explain why, to avoid spoilers, but they’re associations and not ‘if you liked this, then you’ll love…’ recommendations!
- Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon
- Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita
- The Borgias TV series
- Game of Thrones
- The Castle of Otranto
Review (3 out of 5)
Although a bit slow to the party, this has been on my ‘must-read’ list for a while because I’m fascinated by paintings in literature, and as a Victorianist Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’, part of the inspiration for this book, is a much-thumbed read. But sadly I couldn’t find much that really thrilled me here; it left me cold, and I sprint-read the final 80 pages or so to get the book out of my reading pile.
The narrative hooks are certainly there in the first few pages, but the menace and horror of a marriage turned bad and a trapped young bride don’t really resonate. The tropes are there for an elegant thematic criticism: the painter painted; miniatures and underpainting; a beautiful caged beast destroyed by jealous others accidentally thrown upon her; female doubles and how casual accidents, of birth, of health, of kitchenware, define their lives. Yet for some reason these don’t sum to a compelling read.
There is nothing especially wrong here. The prose is sleek, but nothing really stuck with me. One knows where the story’s going, of course, and perhaps the novel is therefore overwhelmed by the pressure of keeping hold of the reader as it reaches the inevitable conclusion. It does warm up a little about halfway through, and perhaps a greater focus earlier on the near past, rather than Lucrezia’s earlier childhood, might have made this easier. The structure of the story is elegantly done, formally, but cannot generate on its own the enthusiasm one needs to keep reading in one sitting. This was true even though I am, as a general rule, fascinated by these Renaissance women and their stories. Sadly, this was a book easily put down.
Take a look at my short story collection featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies: preorder now!
Dominique Gracia 
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