The third in the series of Canaletto historical mysteries by Janet Lawrence, who was recently chairman of the Crime Writers Association. She has hit on the intriguing idea that the famous eighteenth-century architectural painter Antonio Canale may have been a reluctant spy and investigator for William Pitt, the Paymaster-General of the time.
Canaletto historically did come to Britain for ten years from 1746 and this story is based on his involvement with the Duke of Beaufort for whom Canaletto painted views of his country seat, Badminton Hall. Together with Fanny, his young apprentice, he travels to Badminton, with instructions under threat from Pitt to look out for the Young Pretender, as the Duke is a Catholic with Stuart sympathies. From then on, there is a series of fires, murder and attempted murder and much intrigue amongst the family and servants of the Hall and of an adjacent rich property.
Canaletto is drawn as a well-meaning, insecure and prickly character, blowing alternately hot and cold with his faithful young apprentice. The story is a gentle one, even though there are crimes in plenty. The atmosphere of affluent eighteenth-century country life is captured well and the characters are life-like and believable. The author acknowledges the help she received from the present Duke of Beaufort and his archivist, especially in relation to Canaletto's paintings at Badminton, so the locale is faithfully portrayed.
A very good, straightforward read, thankfully free from the monotonous obscenities and gratuitous violence that defaces so much contemporary fiction.