‘Mrs Whistler’: A compelling read about artist muse Maud Franklin

James McNeill Whistler is not a name usually ranked alongside the very greatest Impressionists – Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, for example – but he was for all that a radical and important artist of the late 19th century.

He was also an American in London and therefore something of an outsider, despite the very English nature of his social orbit and subject matter. Society portraits, views of the Thames and some innovative interior design work are most of what we see of his artistic output in this latest novel by writer and art historian Matthew Plampin.