★★★★

How I wish I’d known about this book when I went to Amsterdam! I always enjoy taking appropriate reading material on my travels and this would have been absolutely perfect. Moggach’s novel of love, art and betrayal is set in the Dutch Golden Age, at a time of millwheel ruffs and dark clothing, merry companies in taverns, and maids in linen caps sweeping the steps of canalside houses. In short, it reads like the literary equivalent of the National Gallery’s Vermeer show.

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