Young Richard (12) is a mover; he has the eerie ability to move into and out of paintings, where the figures speak to him and he to them. Victorian archness, a foreboding atmosphere, and the strangeness of his widowed mother, who writes a manners column, contour the plot that slowly builds into a surreal tale akin to The Portrait of Dorian Gray as emotions funnel around the void in Richard’s life dominated by paintings. As he searches for stolen paintings by F. Jones that seem to hold the key to his foggy past, Richard pieces together the twisted tale of unseemly family entanglements image by remembered image, daubed with waves, maps, a woman in a blue dress, and his father’s death. The 11 paintings that Richard enters are listed at the end along with the location where they are held on display. The gaslight-like pace and dark uneasiness that hovers between reality and fantasy will require a sophisticated reader. Plodding, but bizarrely intriguing. (Fiction. YA)
