It’s 1924 and Poppy Denby is heading up to Northumberland to celebrate her father’s sixtieth birthday. She stops off in Newcastle en route to visit her Aunt Dot, who has temporarily relocated from London to renovate a house she’s inherited. One of Aunt Dot’s guests is the world-renowned artist, Agnes Robson, who is staging an exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery. Reluctantly, Poppy is roped in to help when the artist’s press liaison man falls ill. She soon discovers that the local press has dug up some dirt on Agnes relating to the tragic death of a young art teacher in Ashington Colliery, twenty-seven years earlier. As she tries to suppress the story, Poppy begins to suspect that the teacher might have been murdered and that the killer may still be on the loose… ISBN-13: 9781782643197 Paperback: 352 pages Release Date: October 2020 ‘Cleverly plotted as always, with an exceptional eye for detail and a fabulous amateur sleuth, Veitch Smith carries us back once more to the Golden Age for this delicious murder mystery.’ Jacky Collins, Dr Noir and founder of Newcastle Noir Crime Festival |
‘Teasingly delicious and wonderfully readable’ LoveReading ‘Highly recommended!’ Dolores Gordon-Smith, author | ‘British mystery fans, you want to read this.’ Cassandra Chan, author ‘An absolute treat’ Mystery People |
After finishing The Cairo Brief I just couldn't get enough of Poppy Denby Investigates, author Fiona Veitch Smith's fun Jazz Age crime solving reporters, so I just when right ahead and started The Art Fiasco right away. And trust me, this story turned out to be a dilly as Poppy once again takes on some tough issues while bringing the truth to light.
As an American reader I'm a bit of a stranger to settings like the one in The Art Fiasco but I find them to be completely fascinating. The author brought everything vividly to life in my imagination but having previously watched the Coal House series from the BBC also greatly helped me visualize a number of scenes in the story.
One of the things that I found most intriguing about this particular book in the Poppy Denby Investigates series was that Fiona Veitch Smith was able to take some events from her own family history as inspiration for the story. It made both the fiction and the facts seem more real.
If you love British mysteries from an author who truly knows the area and the people, if you enjoy soaking up the atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties, and if you think historical mysteries are fun to try and solve you'll be just as convinced as I am that The Art Fiasco is a real swell book and the entire Poppy Denby Investigates series from Fiona Veitch Smith is the real cat's meow!
Tell Tale Book Reviews gives The Art Fiasco by Fiona Veitch Smith a 4 Bark rating.
Fiona Veitch Smith is the author of the Poppy Denby Investigates novels, Golden Age-style murder mysteries set in the 1920s, about a reporter sleuth who works for a London tabloid. The first book in the series, The Jazz Files, was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger, while subsequent books have been shortlisted for the Foreword Review Mystery Novel of the Year and the People’s Book Prize. She is formerly a journalist, having worked on the arts and crime beats of a Cape Town newspaper, and lectured in journalism in the UK for over a decade. She is currently the Deputy Editor of the CWA’s Red Herrings Magazine. www.poppydenby.com. |