The Markov Affair
Michael Reidy
‘My name is Jake Hadley and I am a writer.’ This is how Reidy’s narrator introduces himself in The Markov Affair, the fifth novel about the commercial art world in his Unvarnished Truths series. Immediately Hadley begins to qualify the statement: ‘admittedly, not much of one now,’ he says. He writes for a blog site called Trafalgar Cross, owned and edited by a school friend, Jonathan Ford, and again, another qualification: ‘Jonathan was always more clever than I.’ Hadley writes one-off articles on events such as the Trooping the Colour and the State Opening of Parliament, but he is principally the site’s restaurant critic. He is often found to be cadging expenses for some new establishment or other, often to charm a girl he wishes to impress.
Hadley is an ‘original’ sort of narrator to say the least. His writing skills are also employed in a solo enterprise. He writes letters of complaint for clients who want remedy or recompense from the local council, utility companies, or landlords. At fifteen pounds a pop this can bring in a few hundred pounds a week. Apart from stationery and stamps he has no overheads because his ‘office’ is a pub in a quiet neighbourhood near Victoria Station. As if this weren’t ‘original’ enough, he also has a part-time job responding to complaints and returns for an upmarket shirt company. It is down to him whether the company refunds, replaces or rejects.
Apart from these employments, Hadley seems to have little agency. He is someone to whom things happen. He is swept into affairs where he does not know the rationale behind the role assigned to him, is unsure what the parameters of the role are, and has little idea what he is expected to achieve. He is given assignments by Jonathan with minimal briefing as to their nature and purpose.
The genesis of the Markov Affair takes place at a private view of abstract paintings by Cheryshevsky, allegedly a refugee from Putin’s Russia. A figure in a Venetian carnival costume slashes the paintings and flees. Similar outrages happen at viewings of the work of two other Russian painters in other galleries. In one case, graffiti are left behind. What does AAAA stand for? Is it a grading? Does it refer to the Artists Against Abstract Art? Or is there some reference to the composer Fauré? Neat pun.
Jonathan engages Jake to conduct some research into the situation, feeding him bits of information as they arrive. The questions mount up. Why do the Russian painters not attend their own launches? Did they really paint the works attributed to them? Do they even exist? Why have the paintings acquired such enormous price tags? Is the affair a question of political protest? Espionage? Money laundering? An Insurance scam? The police and the secret service agencies become involved and complicate the issues without resolving them. And then the body of the first gallery manager is found. Suicide? Murder? Assassination? The who?-whar?-where?-when? are easily established, but the why? proves elusive.
What makes the novel so intriguing is that most of the time Jake hasn’t a clue what is going on, and Jonathan seems little the wiser. Government agencies – including the police – seem gridlocked and at odds with each other. Kafka meets Agatha Christie, with a dash of Ian Fleming.
Since the novel is part of the Unvarnished Truths series I was surprised that Sir Nigel and Sophie did not make an appearance until quite a way into of the story. Since there are questions of attribution involved, it isn’t surprising that Sir Nigel is called in at last. It seems at first that his and Sophie’s appearance are but cameos, though readers familiar with them will not be surprised to find them significantly present at the dénouement.
For in true Agatha Christie style, all the persons of interest foregather to witness the unravelling, but not before a formal meeting involving the police, representatives of MI16, and others whose métiers involve crime, espionage, and matters of national security. The definitive revelations are finally made at the London domicile of the Marquess of Dunwich. There is a little Nabokovian joke here in that Dunwich, once a thriving and influential city, was swallowed up by the sea one late medieval day, leaving a mere hamlet behind. It is said that that at high tides the bells of the drowned churches can be heard.
I can say nothing about the revelations of course. In such an artfully contrived plot the merest hint could lead to a significant spoiler. Suffice it to say that the conclusions are surprising, entertaining and rewarding.
There is a lot of name-dropping in this novel – we move from the Oxford and Cambridge Club to the Dorchester, and to any number of sophisticated eateries. But then, the ‘Art World’ is all about networking: it is characteristically sophisticated, glamorous, brittle, shallow, pretentious – take your pick. It is also about money, big money. Jake is on the edge of all this, but he is also a restaurant critic, and quite at home in such circles. His reviews are aimed at just such people.
It is a neat touch that Olivia, whom Jake has been schmoozing throughout the novel – and wining and dining at the expense of the Trafalgar Cross when he can get away with it – is an events organiser, engaging a kind of rent-a-mob of presentable freeloaders who can bulk out a reception and make it seem successful and exciting whilst enthusiastically hoovering up the free booze and canapês. In the end, Olivia proves to be…
But hush! …find out what Olivia proves to be by reading it yourself. You won’t be disappointed.
