Marianne (Maz), a famous artist, has died in Oxford, sliding off her snowy roof. Rowan Winter had been her friend since before public school days, but they'd fallen out. She goes to Marianne's funeral and wake, meeting her mother Jacqueline and brother Adam (who lives in Cambridge, doing a Ph.D). Seb was Maz's late father. Towards the end Maz thought someone was trying to steal her minor works - sketches etc.
Rowan was born and brought up in Oxford. Her mother died when Rowan was a baby so Rowan spent a lot of time in Maz's house. She was shocked when she thought Seb was having an affair, more shocked still when she discover that Maz and her mother knew. She's kept a secret for 10 years, been out of contact with Maz for all that time. Maz had sent her a note that arrived after her death. Rowan house-sits to protect the contents.
Maz had become friends with James Greenwood (her agent) 4 years before but didn't live together. He had a daughter Briony, now 18, who Maz had been friendly with. He was making a lot of money out of Maz. Rowan's told that Maz was sitting for Michael Cory, a portraitist with a reputation - surely James knew the risk. She'd started a sequence of pieces based on anorexia.
Rowan meets Theo, a friend from uni who's a chief inspector. He sleeps with her then says he's married with a kid - he thought she knew. She has tea with friend Peter/Turk who was briefly famous after releasing a single. We learn that Seb was in his early 30s when his big book came out. He killed a woman in a car crash and died. Maz was different after that. She paid for the dead woman's son to go through university. Michael Cory's celeb models subsequently killed themselves or had mental breakdowns. Did Cory's intense treatment make them mad, or was he attracted to mad subjects? Cory meets Rowan, wanting to know more about Maz so he can complete the portrait. He thinks she painted anorexics because she was "consumed" by guilt about someone's death - not her own. Rowan's nervous that he might discover something.
She and Adam (who she's always fancied) sleep together. She discovers that Peter/Turk has been stealing sketches and selling them. He says that Maz's family thought she was a leech.
There's a flashback to Seb's 50th birthday party at their house. He'd invited his current lover, Lorna, breaking the unwritten rules about his affairs.
Cory finds a sketch by Maz of a face in a houseboat window. Rowan had been keeping it so that Maz wouldn't go to the police. She tells him that Lorna was killed. He takes him to where Lorna's secluded houseboat was and kills him. There's a flashback to when she and Maz were discussing how the houseboat exploded - how Rowan confessed saying that Lorna's death would put things right, and that it was Maz's idea.
She puts clues together and tells the police enough to incriminate Briony, who confesses to the police that she'd been on the roof when Maz died - an accident. Brain-damaged Martin, who lives opposite, is an important witness.
Rowan thinks she might get away with it and spend her life with Adam. The police investigation of Cory's death reveals unfortunately details. She goes on the roof. Adam talks to her there. He seems to have guessed the truth. She jumps.
I liked the art-related details, and the Oxford setting. I hadn't been expecting an unreliable narrator, though there were clues.
Other reviews
- damppebbles
- beautyisasleepingcat ( I didn’t mind the slow pace as much as the implausibility of some of the twists. One was really surprising and well done, the others were over the top)
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