The story begins on a hot August evening in Mayfair, at the private view of the 'Last Paintings' of John Crane Amongst those present are Crane's widow Lyris a painter in her own right her friend Clovis Ingram, a middle-aged bookseller a beautiful young television film-maker called Zoe and Lyris' great-nephew Nathan Pursey, a young conceptual artist on the make This evening will change all their lives forever 'The Artist's Widow' is about friendship, betryal, courage and cowardice, the nature of the artistic impulse Intricately plotted, it is wise and funny