Eccentric aristocrats, an overweight Chinese oligarch and a scheming Russian with a “devious mind”: it sounds like the client list for a leading global property consultancy group but actually these characters are protagonists in the debut novel by William Nicoll, valuation director at Savills.
Eccentric aristocrats, an overweight Chinese oligarch and a scheming Russian with a “devious mind”: it sounds like the client list for a leading global property consultancy group but actually these characters are protagonists in the debut novel by William Nicoll, valuation director at Savills.
Nicoll wrote his book, which carries the intriguing title EnCanot and the Accidental Artist, on the train during his daily commute to work.
He says it took around 18 months to write the story, which is about a cubist painting called ‘En Canot’ that was looted by the Nazis and was last seen at Hitler’s Degenerate Art Exhibition in 1937, until it surfaces in Russia where a plan is hatched to smuggle the picture elsewhere.
Ranald Milngavie, a hapless Glaswegian artist, stumbles into the scam and a “cracking Scottish adventure” ensues.
Nicoll says that at just £10 (including postage) this “rollicking good yarn” makes a great stocking filler. Whether or not it makes the Christmas bestseller list remains to be seen.
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