In a collaboration with Penguin, Soho Crime has now brought out an American printing of THE GOLDENACRE, a deeply mournful novel of art crime and greed, set in today's Edinburgh, Scotland. Denise Mina, the doyen of "tartan noir," calls the book a riveting, brutal journey into the high stakes world of inherited art and wealth, and it can certainly be read that way. But if your season allows time to enter Philip Miller's novel slowly, there is a wealth of literary depth to savor as well.
Two principal points of view dominate: that of sardonic reporter Shona Sandison, seeing her lifelong career at the Edinburgh Post melting away as digital platforms take over the news business, and that of the rather ineffective Thomas Tallis, designated to authenticate the provenance of a work of art called "The Goldenacre." The painting, fabulously valuable, is being donated to the Scottish government in lieu of back taxes owed by the mansion-rich, cash-poor family that owns it. Thomas needs to verify that it's really "the last precious work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the artist and architect" -- and sign off on the deal.
But Thomas is hesitant, uncertain, a weak reed in many ways. Which makes him almost the total opposite of his father, Sir Raymond T. Tallis, former deputy director of MI6.
Thomas Tallis hasn't had much of his father's attention, and he's not getting family support right now, either. In fact, despite a small son in common, his wife seems to be divorcing him and taking the boy, and Thomas is doing nothing about it, despite enormous pain and grief. Slowly this comes into focus as a parallel to the wistfulness of the painting -- which portrays a pastoral area of Edinburgh still known as the Goldenacre. So when a hint of impropriety reaches him about the painting, this too is something he fails to take much action on.
Shona Sandison, though, is already linking the pieces, including the death (murder?) of a local artist, and the mysterious circumstances behind Thomas's recent change of jobs.
And then poor Thomas receives a very threatening message in the form of a human body part.
His collapse comes amid shimmering descriptions of Edinburgh, where he'd lived as a child. When he finds himself needing a drink, he knows to abandon the modern commercial part of the city:
There had been a place he had gone to as a boy. He would go there: the bend in the river. In the town where he had been sent to school, there were woods that followed the river up to its source A mile outside the town, the river—wide and slow—slowly turned. There was a beach on the slow side of the bend, and a broken viaduct. There, the shadows of the trees plunged into moving water and oaks grew. There was cool shade in the summer, and in winter the river ran swollen, and covered the shingle beach. He dreamt of it often.
Stepping back into his dreams, Thomas loses his grasp on the threats around him, and what to do about them. It's just as well, considering what takes place when the paired movements of this art investigator and the investigative journalist put pressure onto the major crime being organized around them.
There are several strands to the book's conclusion, and one might quibble with the forcing of some aspects. Yet it's undeniably a powerful and enjoyable read, and places Miller among the must-read authors who bind the tragedy of their crimes to Scotland's cities and feudal history.
PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.
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