Rosemary Hamer

Portrait of a Death Rosemary Hamer

Paris 1971. 'He was about to leave when he spotted the picture. It was hidden away in a dark corner barely visible but he knew it immediately. He made his way over holding his breath in case he'd been mistaken. But no, it was her, his beloved Camille.'This is a story within stories about the journey of Camille's haunting portrait through the decades. The painting passes through the hands of different sets of people from 1940's Paris to 80s and 90s London and finally to new York in the 2000s. Each group of people has their own story to tell but the painting has a profound and disturbing effect as it enters their lives and witnesses their deaths. Camille enslaves them all with her allure and mystery. As the story unfolds a return to the Paris of the 1920s reveals the secret origins of the painting. Layer upon layer is exposed in all its stark reality unmasking lives fraught with passion, jealousy, betrayal, suspicion, terror and ultimately murder.