Quite entertaining mystery built around a (fictitious) Ministry of Fine Arts, supposedly set up by the British Labour government just after WW2. There's a lot of discussion about the problem of knowing good from bad in modern art, about which the author shows a good level of knowledge (how many crime writers of the period would have name-checked Ben Nicholson and Francis Bacon?) There's also one of the most unusual murder weapons ever conceived: an enormous bust by Canova is used to clobber the victim, a pompous civil servant with strong views on art. The setting, a large house designed by Decimus Burton, is also well-drawn with its enormous loft and cellars. The main drawback is that some of the characters are rather indistinguishable, which makes the revelation of the culprit less interesting than it might be. ( )