Rating: 
Summary: Very funny in parts
Review: This is my first Frayn novel, which I bought after reading the recent profile of the author in The New Yorker. I feel ambivalent about it: I read through this quickly, and I'm encouraged to read other Frayn novels, yet I wouldn't recommend this one very strongly. Though I'm mainly a nonfiction reader, I found the endless digressions into the main character's researches mostly boring. The good: Frayn is a wonderfully fluent writer, and parts are quite funny. The book reaches a peak of humor about two thirds of the way through, when the comedy of errors reaches a ripe pitch, and it made me laugh out loud more than once. But the ending is way too Hollywood for me, shoot-'em-up and smash-'em-up, and I hate the fact that we never find out...! I won't say what, so as not to ruin the book for those who haven't read it yet. Those who have read it know what I'm talking about.
I intend to try a couple of the author's other books. I wouldn't recommend starting on this one, although...(my ambivalence again) I'm not sorry I read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Stunning book!
Review: This is one of the better books I have read in a long time. I know nothing about Dutch art in the 1600's, but I don't have to. Frayn lays everything out for you, and the art history is a vital and exciting element of the book. The book is so well written, you understand exactly what motivates the main character. Frayn's writing style is easy to read, but very well developed and intelligent. I had to force myself to slow down, I was so caught up in the plot, but wanted to enjoy the writing. Excellent book!
Rating:
Summary: Obsession, or a Moral Tragicomedy in Intellectual Apparel
Review: This is the first book by Michael Frayen I've ever read and I'm really impressed. The novel is a page-turner: the comical part of the plot is rather unobtrusive, it includes genuine pearls of humorous characteristics and funny remarks; the part depicting life and time of the great Flemish artist Peter Bruegel is excellent, it is cognitive and incentive, one will feel necessity to dive into bizarre world of painter's fantasies by visiting libraries or appropriate sites on the Net. The author invites you to solve the mystery of Bruegel's art and simultaneously entertines with masterly depiction of unfortunate attempts of Martin Clay, a hero of the novel, to obtain lost masterpiece. But under the layers of comical effects one can discern elements of tragical events in some keeping with bloody history of the Netherlands under Spanish rule in the 16th century. Martin, a modern person who has everything he really needs - a loving young wife, wonderful daughter, decent work and income, by accident comes across a lost Bruegel's (probably) canvas in the home of his country neighbor who is unaware of his fortune and wants to sell it. Martin commences his efforts to acquire the picture with a proper desire to give it to the National Gallery in London and receive universal kudos for its discovery. But little by little the craving for its possession takes him all, he lies, cheats, commits illegal actions. Next comes possibility of adultery and even leaving his wife and daughter as a price for the canvas. Martin can not resist his monomania anymore, he is ready to justify all his unbecoming deeds. Even in the last ordeal by fire, when he has to choose between rescue of Laura, his neighbor's wife, and the longed-for canvas, he picks the latter at first and only Laura's desperate scream helps him to make right choice. The last pages of the novel are rather sad...the life of the hero is normalizing again (or at least he thinks so). The book is Martin's confession, his endeavor to alleviate pain caused by his rash actions, to understand what has happened with him... And why...
Rating: 
Summary: SLY MIX OF ART, GENIAL APLOMB AND LATE-NIGHT CHASES..
Review: This is the first time I've read Frayn, but his high-tea civilised comic intelligence is reminiscent of P.G. Wodehouse. The wit that encases Headlong is not in the laugh-out-loud, satirically savage league of Sedaris or Rakoff, but it manages to hold its own in the bittersweet and ironic department. Plotwise, there isn't exactly too much adipose. Our urban protagonist, a philosophy lecturer with an interest in art history, camps up in his country cottage to cope with a writer's block, meets a rich but rural landowner and his younger wife (bundles of urban-rural barbs), finds at their house what we are led to believe is a collector's item unbeknownst to the landowner, and sets out on a frantic process of discovery to authenticate this potentially pricey work of art and steal it from his host. Troubles ensue. The wife of the landowner is enlisted as an accomplice in the grand heist plan. Oodles of action, clinched by a chase sequence at the end. While not something I'd read again (I am told Frayn's "Sweet Dreams" is better) Headlong is certainly a pleasant book that chugs along with a genial step. Very decent light-reading material to accompany you on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
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