The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby by Ellery Lloyd review

THE FINAL ACT OF JULIETTE WILLOUGHBY
BY ELLERY LLOYD
Pan Macmillan
€15.99

Where there’s a priceless painting, there’s a way

IT’S PRESENT day Dubai and the art world is teeming with excitement about the sale of a long lost painting. Not only are the obscenely rich art collectors, buying just because they can, chewing at the bit to purchase a priceless work of art to hang in one of their downstairs bathrooms, academics and experts alike are excited to view, in the flesh, this unexpected find for themselves.

It is the only known work of Juliette Willoughby, an artist who entered iconic status since a sudden revival of interest in her, long after a fire in Paris in the 1930s in which she perished alongside her married lover and all of her paintings, or so it was thought.

The daughter of an English Lord and avid collector of Egyptian artefacts, and niece of a prominent portrait artist (portraits of dogs, but what upper class family can do without an accurate representation of their faithful friend?), Juliette fled to the continent to live the bohemian life of an artist with her German paramour, after a childhood rocked by scandal and a stint in an asylum.

A surprise cliff-hanger ends chapter one, and from Dubai the story rewinds to Cambridge, 1991. A young Patrick Lambert and Caroline Cooper are about to embark on a seminar on Surrealism, and are steered by their supervisor to researching Juliette Willoughby and her curious past. Patrick has connections with the Willoughby family – he grew up with two members of the youngest generation, cousins who are also whiling away time at university until entering the House of Lords.

His father, an art dealer, had handled the sale of the pet portraits and other valuable items that went towards the upkeep of the tumbledown family seat, and Patrick has inherited his eye for sorting the valuable from the dross.

Caroline has a less lofty background, but hers also informs some of the decisions made that determine the outcome of the pair’s lives. When the two attend the 21st birthday party Harry Willoughby she serves as the outsider eyes for the reader. The party, held at the estate, is dripping in privilege, and Caroline in her eagerness to discuss Juliette puts her not so well heeled foot in it, resulting in a carefully curated chain of events.

Shifting from the billionaire’s playground in today’s Dubai to 1991 Cambridge makes for for an interesting juxtaposition of the changing fortunes of the gentry in England, or at least some of them. In an age where money is king, estates on their last legs being held together with a roll of sticky tape and a prayer aren’t as impressive or indeed influential as they once were. The aristocracy is irrelevant if they have no power, and power in these quarters is wealth.

A third string in the narrative bow comes from Juliette herself, via a diary written in Paris, just before her death. It furthers the insight into the change of class influence over the years, as well as offering a feminist slant on the role of women, particularly within both the upper classes and the art world, and their unfortunate habit of being dismissed, overlooked and forgotten about if they dare to question their betters.

The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby is a well constructed story of three threads, with multiple mysteries to uncover in each one. Juliette hints that her so called madness was, in fact, the shocked ravings of a witness to a terrible crime. A different disappearance, in 1991, seems superfluous to the main story; but is it? The owner of the artwork in 2024 is acting out of character – could this suggest a sad decent into addiction, or something more sinister?

For a summer thriller, this has a surprising abundance of homages to Donna Tarte. The old money, art world set story seen through the eyes of people on the cusp of worlds is stylishly drawn, and are more convincing than the Juliette diaries.

There is a lot happening at the same time, but all of it is interlinked, perhaps a little too neatly. There are no red herrings, no wild geese to chase, just an intertwining mystery to be carried along by. It is smart, it is fun, it is a page turner, and its slickness is a quibble that is a very minor strike against it. It is a holiday read with heft, an enjoyable, above average caper.