In his academic pursuits, Martin is currently veering away from philosophy and into his wife's realm, and when the neighbor asks him to look at some old paintings, the plot thickens. You see, Martin is convinced from a brief glance that a large soot-covered panel is actually a missing work of Bruegel (the 16th-century Flemish painter), one from a series titled "The Months" (of which five are extant). Frayn milks this conceit to the max, as Martin rushes too and fro in great secrecy, both attempting to ascertain the work's authenticity and provenance, as well as trying to come up with a con to "have it off" the insufferable neighbor. On the painting side, this involves lots of homework on the iconography and iconology of the work in question, which Frayn handles very clumsily. There is a lot of potted art history cobbled together from various sources, including recountings of the shifting academic debates on "The Months" series. This is all doubtless fascinating to art historians, as Martin recounts all manner of speculation about encoded portrayals of Spanish persecution in the 16th century and the issues of patronage. However, this all goes on at far greater length and detail than most readers will care for. Whenever the art history bits appear, the pace of the proceedings is inevitably ruined, as the light farce gets bogged down in arcana. It also doesn't help that one really needs to have reproductions of the paintings under discussion to look at while reading.

The rest of the book is rather more entertaining, although like many such farces, Martin creates all kinds of unnecessarily extra complications for himself by trying to keep everything secret. There's a certain satisfaction to be gained from watching Martin flounder, since he's not a particularly sympathetic character. He's an average upper-middle class academic who sees in the painting his chance to score a few million and get his name in the history books. But he is constantly bedeviled by the uncertain authenticity of the painting and his own lack of funds to set up the sting of his neighbor. Other complications include the neighbor's flirty wife, the neighbor's sharp brother, and plenty of misadventures. It's all sort of funny, but also sort of pathetic to see Martin bumbling around in a cloud of delusional greed. Frayn is certainly adept at skewering types of characters and lifestyle, and his prose is certainly enjoyable, but it's an uneasy mix he's created here.