My tone's going to sound inappropriately light minded at times. But that's the way it was. The tone of most of the things we do in life is probably going to turn out to have been painfully unsuitable in the light of what happens later.In a bid to escape the diversions of London, philosopher and would-be art historian Martin Clay heads to the countryside with his wife and daughter so that he might finally knuckle down to work on writing the book he should have started several months ago. Yet he stumbles upon an even bigger distraction in local landowner Tony Churt's breakfast room when he is invited to cast an educated eye over some paintings languishing within; a missing masterpiece he believes to be worth millions. The oblivious Tony Churt hopes he can salvage a few thousand pounds out of his acquisitions and needs Martin's help in finding a buyer; and so an opportunity presents itself. If Martin can prove that he has discovered a lost Bruegel and, more importantly, if he can keep his unwitting neighbour in the dark as to its worth, then not only would he be performing a great public service by bringing it to light, but he might also find himself a couple of million richer!
Up until maybe a quarter of the way through Headlong, I was thinking this was going to be a 4 or possibly 5 star read; humour, tension, a bit of adventure, it seemed to have everything! However, once Martin embarked upon his mission to prove the painting was indeed a missing Bruegel the book seemed less and less of a fiction and more of an intricate (not to mention lengthy) study into art interpretation and European history! I found this interesting up to a point, but once lost there was no way back, and more often than not I was hankering to get back to the 'real-time' action which was gloriously entertaining on the whole. If this balance had been fine-tuned then I could have seen this being a new favourite!
RATING: ★★★☆☆
Lou x
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