{"id":1472,"date":"2016-10-07T00:51:37","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T00:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/?p=1472"},"modified":"2016-10-07T16:36:36","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T16:36:36","slug":"backstory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/?p=1472","title":{"rendered":"Mystery review"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Anonymous Review of a Mystery Novel\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Court Painter’s Apprentice<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Presented by Court Painter Promotions@<\/em><\/p>\n

The novel begins with an elderly Press Attache, stopping at Wild Bill’s bar in Banff one night where he snuggles with the bar maid as is his wont.<\/p>\n

\"senior-correction-copy-2\"<\/p>\n

Later after a few shooters when inadvertently sticking his hand in the spittoon he finds an
\nextraordinary drawing wadded up and asks the barkeeper if he knows the
\nartist. The barkeeper reveals with a subtle nod of his head that the artist is none other than someone
\nnamed Johnny Broad Brush. The Press Attache shakes awake the napping creative ,introduces himself and convinces Johnny to sign with him and that
\nhe would benefit becoming a Court Painter of the Great Dominion under the management and guidance of The Press Attache.<\/p>\n

\"court-painter-novel-3\"<\/p>\n

The Press Attache and Johnny eventually leave
\nWild Bills and the weeping bar maid behind and begin a journey into an unscripted and troubled macho world.<\/p>\n

The story is hugely atmospheric \u2013 the scenes at Wild Bills on the
\nstormy night immediately pulled me into the story. Also the phantasmagoric world of
\nlife in the studio of a great painter and his bustling workshop jump off the page and are a great example
\nof how setting can really make a story.<\/p>\n

\"court-painter-novel-2\"<\/p>\n

The plot of this book was not at all what I expected. I should have paid
\nmore attention to the blurb but sometimes I just pick up a book simply because it would make a good door stop or
\nbecause I assume it will be about symbiotics . I wonder if anyone\u00a0else does that?\u00a0Sometimes I also choose a book for the age group it
\ntargets because of my covert work as a budding \u00a0art journalist and again that was the case with The Court<\/em>
\n Painter\u2019s Apprentice<\/em>. I was looking to read a novel that appealed to the Calgary hipster type\u00a0and as luck would have it I found one that all MFA candidates should be required to read.<\/p>\n

\"court-painter-novel-4\"<\/p>\n

The story felt almost ghostly and gothic at times. It defies the current
\ntrend for hipster fiction to be abundant with giggley humour and I didn\u2019t mind
\nthat at all. Not one bit. However, I did lose the sense of how old Johnny Broad Brush was at times
\nthrough the story. I felt that he was aging not in a Dorian Gray way but I was confused as to how
\nold he was by the end. Perhaps this was a deliberate decision by the
\nauthor as Johnny Broad Brush lost his childhood self in the cornfields of Iowa in the pursuit of his burgeoning talent .<\/p>\n

\"court-painter-novel-5\"<\/p>\n

There is a swirling mystery in this book and it centres upon Johnny’s
\nunusual gift which itself remains a mystery. The introduction of the character A Girl Named Robin was inexplicable outside of it being a pure eye candy marketing gimmick.<\/p>\n

\"a-girl-named-robin\"<\/p>\n

Personally I think some of the unexpected happenings were
\nnot entirely resolved like the time Johnny makes the Press Attache fetch
\nhim some pizza and beer and then refuses to share it. A cruel but necessary passage that left me cold. Yet I loved the pace
\nof the book and that the author didn\u2019t waste time telling us unnecessary
\ndetails and descriptions of studio orgies and wasted booga booga nights. Despite the confusion I felt at the end of the
\nbook, I was riveted all the way through and found it a real page turner and barn burner.<\/p>\n

\"court-painter-novel-1\"
\nI can imagine hipsters reading this to their children and the children of their drug dealers.<\/p>\n

The Court Painter\u2019s\u00a0Apprentice<\/em> is an intelligent and compelling novel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Anonymous Review of a Mystery Novel\u00a0 The Court Painter’s Apprentice Presented by Court Painter Promotions@ The novel begins with an elderly Press Attache, stopping at Wild Bill’s bar in Banff one night where he snuggles with the bar maid as is his wont. Later after a few shooters when inadvertently sticking his hand in … Continue reading “Mystery review”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-images","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1472"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12494,"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1472\/revisions\/12494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allanhardingmackay.ca\/courtpainter\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}