The Carnforth Double

Catrin Sayer #4

by Allan Jones

Two years after an unsolved major art heist in London at a merchant bank, a prisoner in Rome sends a message to the Metropolitan Police. He is prepared to talk about a sentencing deal for information about the bank robbery. The Met is interested; it was not just that three paintings were stolen, two of them near-priceless canvases by the ‘horse artist’ George Stubbs. It was also a violent robbery in which a family was terrified, the mother beaten and the father kidnapped. Detective Sergeant Catrin Sayer of the Art Crime Unit, Metropolitan Police has returned from a supposedly routine ‘diplomatic relations’ assignment in Malaysia, one that went disastrously wrong. She finds herself assigned to the bank robbery now that it has developed a new lead. Her proposal to ensnare the perpetrators is unusual, to say the least. She wants to focus on the obscure third painting stolen, a portrait from the mid-eighteenth century of a farmer’s wife, Mrs. Rosalind Heaton of Carnforth, Lancashire, painted by an unknown artist called Hamlet Winstanley. And if that’s not enough for Sayer, she has to worry about whether or not a Triad gang now wants her dead, even if she has left Malaysia… The Carnforth Double… the fourth Catrin Sayer mystery.

290 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 10, 2015

About the author

I grew up in Merseyside, England, became a chemist, moved in the 1980s to Canada and recently retired. I started creative writing several years ago.

Oct 2019 update. My newest novel is a 'stand alone', not part of the Catrin Sayer series. Called 'Canons', it is set partly in the Lake District UK, partly in Hamilton, Ontario. A key element is a modern church trial; a court of canon law. But it begins with a body in a lake near Keswick...

My published novels so far are about a young Welsh detective, Catrin Sayer, who works in an Art Crime Unit at New Scotland Yard. 'The Chinese Sailor' is partly set in North Wales. The second in the series, 'The Scottish Colourist' is in Glasgow and the third, 'The Falmouth Model, moves the events to Cornwall and, towards the end, Malaysia. The fourth in the series, 'The Carnforth Double' picks up the end of the third but moves quickly to London, and an investigation of the theft of paintings from a merchant bank. The last novel published in November 2016 deals with a strange painting found in mid-Wales - 'The Powys Deacon.

The series follows the life and career of Catrin Sayer, both the ups and the downs, from her decision to become a police officer in London after graduation from university with an arts degree. I try to make both the characters 'real people' as each art mystery unfolds; no macabre violence, serial psychopaths or detectives with no life outside work. But interesting characters, I think, nonetheless, some of which crop up in each book.

I hope you have a look at them if you like traditional British detective mysteries.

Reviews

[P.J. O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

This latest book in the Catrin Sayers art theft detective series builds very much on the previous ones. Like the others, it’s engaging, intelligent, and allows the reader to follow Catrin across several countries to follow leads, trade information, and broker deals.

Because I never studied art formally, I like how Allan Jones presents background information about paintings and artists in a way that doesn’t interrupt the flow of the story. In the case of The Carnforth Double, a thread interwoven with the main narrative tells the story of Rosalind Heaton, the portrait subject of English engraver and painter, Hamlet Winstanley. We gradually learn about Heaton, her time period, and the artist’s techniques as the book goes along. By the time Catrin and her colleagues discuss what a forgery of it must involve, there is no need for an unnatural dialog among the experts to discuss it on a level basic enough for the general reader to understand. We know enough ourselves by that time that we can listen in and follow along.

I also like the way that Jones develops his characters and their relationships. There’s a quiet building of personal and professional ties across the series that is realistically paced. I’ve never had much patience with romance as the main focus of a book, so I appreciate the way that the growing mutual interest with Catrin’s colleague in another city gradually emerged without overshadowing the other aspects of her life and work.

I take a little bit of delight in being one of the first to discover this series, though perhaps I'm just the first to write reviews. But I do hope that others join me, especially if they like art, a little bit of imagined history, and stories about a plucky Welsh policewoman who paints ceramics on the side.

[Wendy Hearder-moan · Rating 3 out of 5]

On my first read of this, I thought there were far too many references to the previous books, i.e. Catrin’s relationship with Li, the events in Glasgow etc. Even though I had read the previous stories quite recently, I was having trouble connecting the dots and I thought it would have been impossible if a year or so had elapsed between readings. On the second time through, I found that it hung together better. With regard to pentimento, I did note that the author must have changed his mind about the name of one of the characters who at one point is referred to as “Newell” instead of “Lowell “.