Catherine Raynes: A Death in Cornwall, After Annie

A Death in Cornwall by Daniel Silva 

Art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon has slipped quietly into London to attend a reception at the Courtauld Gallery celebrating the return of a stolen self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh. But when an old friend from the Devon and Cornwall Police seeks his help with a baffling murder investigation, he finds himself pursuing a powerful and dangerous new adversary. 

The victim is Charlotte Blake, a celebrated professor of art history from Oxford who spends her weekends in the same seaside village where Gabriel once lived under an assumed identity. Her murder appears to be the work of a diabolical serial killer who has been terrorizing the Cornish countryside. But there are a number of telltale inconsistencies, including a missing mobile phone. And then there is the mysterious three-letter cypher she left behind on a notepad in her study. 

Gabriel soon discovers that Professor Blake was searching for a looted Picasso worth more than a $100 million, and he takes up the chase for the painting as only he can—with six Impressionist canvases forged by his own hand and an unlikely team of operatives that includes a world-famous violinist, a beautiful master thief, and a lethal contract killer turned British spy. The result is a stylish and wildly entertaining mystery that moves at lightning speed from the cliffs of Cornwall to the enchanted island of Corsica and, finally, to a breathtaking climax on the very doorstep of 10 Downing Street. 

 

After Annie by Anna Quindlen 

When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her four young children and her closest friend are left to struggle without the woman who centered their lives. Bill Brown finds himself overwhelmed, and Annie’s best friend Annemarie is lost to old bad habits without Annie’s support. It is Annie’s daughter, Ali, forced to try to care for her younger brothers and even her father, who manages to maintain some semblance of their former lives for them all, and who confronts the complicated truths of adulthood.  
Yet over the course of the next year, while Annie looms large in their memories, all three are able to grow, to change, even to become stronger and more sure of themselves. The enduring power Annie gave to those who loved her is the power to love, and to go on without her. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to this Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at b.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Newsbalk's E'DB twenty one to twelve. Our book reviewer is
Katherine Range. He's here with her picks for us this weekend.
Hey Catherine, Good morning Jack. So Daniel Silver's got a
new book, tell us about a death in Cornwall?

Speaker 1 (00:24):
He does.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
This is his twenty fourth one and he's retired, yes,
And in this gabrielle On has retired from the Israeli
intelligence stpwork, but of course, and he works now as
an art restorer and lives in Venice with his wife
and children. But of course, you know, being a good thriller,
he gets ameshed in install a tree Greed and Murder,
and he agrees in the start of this book to

(00:45):
go to this unveiling of a recently retrieved stolen self
portrait by Vincent van Gogo at a London gallery. And
while he's there is approached by a friend from his
very uncomfortable past, a guy called Detective Sergeant Timothy Peel,
and Peel wants to enlist his age in his aid
in investigating this murder of Charlotte Break. Who's this prominent

(01:05):
professor of art history from the University of Oxford, and
her brutal murder is being attributed to a serial killer,
but there are inconsistencies in what happened to her that
aren't known to the general public, and there's clues for
a reason to suggest that she may have been killed
by somebody else, and Gabrielle soon uncovers data that Charlotte

(01:26):
was searching for providence of a Nazi luted Picasso painting
worth more than a million dollars, and its ownership was
dated back to an acquisition by a French Jewish businessman
who ended up dying in our switch in nineteen forty four,
and his only daughter survived, who gave birth to a son,
a young man named Emmanuel, who also has been found dead.

(01:47):
And so Gabrielle's wondering if this is a coincidence, and
so he steps up a sting to recover this louted
Picasso and several characters. There's a wonderful woman Ingrid Johnson
who's a professional thief, and an assassin turn British offer
of Christopher Kelly, who've appeared in other books by Daniel Silver,
and so you get this theme of loyalty and betrayal

(02:07):
and greed and international politics and lots of character development
in this modern day problem of using art as a
means to launder money for the very rich and to
avoid taxation and the role of dark money and politics.
And yeah, it's a good read. And it's quite nice
that it's moved away from the intelligent network into the spycraft,

(02:29):
and in the spycraft into the art world. It makes
a bit of a change.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Very good. Okay, So that's Adethan Cornwall by Daniel Silver.
You've also read After Annie by Anna Kidlin.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
So this is a very sad story. And Annie's a
young mother of four who dies very suddenly of a
brain aneurysm. And this happens in the first chapter of
the book. And Annie was a woman who appreciated the
simple pleasures in life. She loved her children and loved
the residents of the nursing home that she worked for.
And the book follows her family and her best friend

(02:59):
through the first year after their loss and how each
handles that loss in their own way. And Bill, her husband,
is completely blinded by grief and loses side of helping
his children and what they need, and thirteen year old Alexander,
who's the oldest child and though she's a mature of
her age, bears a lot more responsibility that she should
have to caring for the younger children, and is also

(03:22):
coping with a secret that her best friend is enduring.
And young eleven year old aunt sadness manifests itself in anger,
and the youngest boys are eight and six and they
just lost the lads who just want their mum to
come home, and so it certainly brings tears to the eyes.
And then her best friend Anne Marie, who had always
looked to any for support and guidance, finds herself falling

(03:43):
back into old habits and trying to maintain her very
hard thought sobriety. And it's not a complicated story, and
it's quite beautiful and how simple it is, and it
really resonates, and it's that testament to strength and love
and shows lots about family dynamics and struggles and that
real sense of grief and loss after losing their wife,

(04:04):
a mum and friend. You know, it also encapulates those
really awkward moments of grief and the quiet struggles, and
it was a very touching story and I guarantee you
you would need some isssues to.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Read the story, all right, that sounds really interesting though,
Thank you casther. And so That's after Annie by Anna
Quinlan Catherine s. Feirs book are Deathan Cornwall by Daniel Silver,
and both of those will be on the website of course.
Next up, new music for You from Lime Cordial at
seventeen to twelve.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to Newstalks ed B from nine am Saturday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio