Missed sleep to race through this gripping story. Little did Charles Cumming know when writing this 2nd outing for the Box 88 crew that Russia would invade Ukraine this year and cause unspeakable death and destruction in and near Kharkhiv, close to the Ukrainian border between these two countries, more or less where a Russian scientist was to be spirited to the West. Discretion forbids further hints or revelations. Read the book to learn all about the exciting twists and turns.

I love this book. Maureen Gibbon's innovative way of giving us a front-row seats as Edouard Manet ponders his illness, and paints his eternally beautiful and thought-provoking pictures. Who else but he would conceive, let alone transmit to canvas his Bar at the Folies Bergere, with its double reflections? The winsome barmaid is presented face-on, putting us in the same place as her shadowy top-hatted patron, seeing her as he did? Gibbon allows us to be party to Manet's notebook entries, his thoughts on his contemporary artist friends, their foibles, rivalries and successes, the eternal politics surrounding the annual Paris Salon which showcases artists' creations during a particular year. Interspersed among these reminiscences are Manet's amours, past and present, always mindful that discretion is the better part of a gentleman's valour, even, or especially on Eros's fields of love.
This is a treasure of a book to be savored over and over again. Highly recommended.