The Portrait

A national bestseller from acclaimed author Iain Pears, The Portrait is a novel of suspense and a tour de force.

An art critic journeys to a remote island off Brittany to sit for a portrait painted by an old friend, a gifted but tormented artist living in self-imposed exile. The painter recalls their years of friendship, the gift of the critic's patronage, and his callous betrayals. As he struggles to capture the character of the man, as well as his image, on canvas, it becomes clear that there is much more than a portrait at stake...

Iain Pears's An Instance of the Fingerpost and The Dream of Scipio are also available from Riverhead Books."Mighty scary. Only an author as clever and confident as Pears could pull off this trick."—Newsweek
 
"A stripped-down exercise in creeping dread."—Christian Science Monitor
 
"A shrewd and masterful raconteur...a tour de force."—The Washington Post Book World
 
"Weirdly haunting, the traps [Pears] sets for the critic are also traps for the reader."—Baltimore Sun
 
"One gutsy novelist... The suspense becomes almost unbearable."—Boston Globe
 
"A fascinating world of high-minded literature written on a small canvas."—Houston Chronicle
 
"An exquisite little gem."—Booklist, starred review
 Iain Pears was born in 1955. Educated at Wadham College, Oxford, he has worked as a journalist, an art historian, and a television consultant in England, France, Italy, and the United States. He is the author of seven highly praised detective novels, a book of art history, and countless articles on artistic, financial, and historical subjects, as well as the international bestseller An Instance of the Fingerpost. He lives in Oxford, England.