Trust

In an auspicious opening section, first novelist Flanagan sketches a hectic portrait of Eleanor Linnane, denied by her eccentric, brutish artist ex-husband Jason Englefield visitation rights to her beloved stepdaughter, his daughter Clover. Accordingly, with the help of lawyer Charles Bevan, she establishes a substantial trust fund for the 11-year-old Clover and leaves Charles's office for a tryst with the international art dealer Felix Koning. The remainder of the novel hinges upon the machinations of urban womanizer Felix, a fence responsible for Charles's professional downfall, as well as for the theft of Jason's paintings. Rashomonlike, he is seen only through the eyes of those useful to him, and the reader watches aghast when his connoisseur's glance falls upon the adolescent Clover. While the second and third sections of the novel recap events from the viewpoints of Jason and Charles, the fourth, and longest, part of the book is devoted to Clover, her relationshp with Felix and her finally matured trust fund, which enables her to restore Charles's legal reputation and to recover and exhibit her father's work. Though the characters are described rather than evoked, the complicated narrative holds the reader's attention, and there is enough glamor, enough sex and enough poking into the dark corners of the art worlds of London and New York to sustain this absorbing novel. (April)