SOURCE: Brookner, Anita. “Artfully, Seriously Ludic.” Spectator 283, no. 8922 (7 August 1999): 34-5.

In the following review, Brookner evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of Headlong.

The journey [in Headlong] begins with a literal journey: a couple travelling north with their young baby. They are going to their cottage in the country, which is furnished with all the comforts of a typical low-grade English rural property: mice, damp, a defaulting septic tank. They are met, unexpectedly, by a man who introduces himself as a neighbour, Tony Churt, equally bedraggled, and receive an even more unexpected invitation to dinner. Churt's purpose becomes clear: he has heard that the wife, Kate, is an art historian, and he would like her opinion as to the saleability of a large picture by Luca Giordano hanging in the breakfast room.

The visit is predictably uncomfortable. Both husband and wife are noncommittal about the Giordano, which is extremely...