"Art" opens with the TARDIS crew being alerted to mysterious goings-on in late nineteenth century Paris by Dorothee. As in other recent novels, the time travellers uncover a preponderance of psychic abilities amongst those they encounter. Roz is set to watch over one such individual, and soon becomes the captive of Montague, leader of a bizarre and horrifying army of former humans. Chris goes undercover as a police officer, and soon finds himself mistaken for the Doctor himself. And the Doctor encounters the members of the Family, whose allegiance he must win if he's to get to the bottom of things. Elsewhere, the alien beings called the Quoth try to unearth the cause of the Blight which has afflicted their race with madness for uncounted lifetimes.

Bucher-Jones' first foray into the New Adventures proves a frustrating one. He constantly demonstrates considerable promise in his writing, only to fail to ever achieve something truly meritorious. His characterisation, for instance, starts off quite well, but in most cases leads nowhere. Chris' masquerade as the Doctor starts off as an excellent examination both of Cwej and how the companion views the Doctor, but is finally utilised simply as a way of generating tension between Chris and his police contact, Inspecteur Jarre. Similarly, a lengthy passage is given over to Roz suddenly finding herself (unnaturally) attracted to a female psychic mutant, but afterward nothing is made of this, and it ends up an isolated curiosity without a specific purpose. Bucher-Jones' handling of the Doctor is tentative, as though the author were a little unsure of how to handle such a complex character. Certain passages involving the Time Lord are deftly written, but others are clunky and rather out of character.

The same plight afflicts the many minor characters Bucher-Jones creates. Most are given an excellent foundation, but the author, in the main, fails to build from this. Instead, the characters seem to list through the latter two-thirds of the novel without much at all in the way of development. Furthermore, Bucher-Jones fails to make a number of the characters truly distinct and, given how jumbled the book tends to be anyway, this makes it rather difficult to keep the players and their allegiances straight.

Indeed, this is a problem which pervades much of the book, stemming from the frankly convoluted first hundred pages or so. While it is often a source of intrigue and suspense to keep the reader guessing at the relationships of characters and events early in a novel, in "Art" it simply serves to confuse. With so many characters and at least four different covert organisations running around, the first third of the novel quickly becomes disjointed and unfathomable. This, in turn, hurts the better-written latter portion of the novel because the reader is forced to spend too much time figuring out what ought to have been made clear from the start, distracting from the unfolding plot.

And this is a shame because, at its heart, "Art" has a very original and enthralling plot, albeit one which is perhaps a little too easy to guess at if the reader is sufficiently alert. Little of the schemes and plots which occupy much of the book really have any direct bearing on the core story itself, though, and this simply exaggerates Bucher-Jones' poor handling of the diverse plot threads. Although by no means obtuse at 275 or so pages, I can't help but feel that "Art" would have benefitted greatly by having a subplot or two slashed away, perhaps leaving more room for proper character development in the novel's latter stages.

Historically, "Art" offers an interesting and well-researched glimpse at France of a century ago, but falls down somewhat in not giving us a proper look at the "mundane" Paris -- the normal setting in which the bizarre action takes place. Consequently, the whole thing feels a little detached from its environment, muting the atmosphere which should otherwise have been generated.

Altogether, "The Death Of Art" is a book which comes across as being a second or third draft, not the finished product. The ingredients for a successful book are there, but the reader has to look to find them. And, coming so close on the heels of the superior but similar "Christmas On A Rational Planet", I suspect many readers won't have the patience to do exactly that.

5/10.

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