The Sphinx Unveiled

In the present day, Dr. Caroline Cooper, a Cambridge art historian, stands before a crowd in Dubai, introducing Juliette Willoughby's "Self-Portrait as Sphinx"—a painting long thought destroyed. Its rediscovery, and the staggering sum it fetches at auction, ignite a media frenzy. But the painting's reappearance is more than a financial event: it challenges everything known about Juliette, a British Surrealist whose life and death were shrouded in mystery. As Caroline prepares to explain the painting's significance, the event is interrupted by the arrest of Patrick Lambert, her former lover and the gallery's co-organizer, for murder. The stage is set for a story that will unravel decades of secrets, betrayals, and the true meaning behind a masterpiece.

Cambridge Connections

Flashing back to 1991, we meet Patrick and Caroline as Cambridge undergraduates, awkwardly reunited for dissertation supervision under the eccentric Alice Long. Their shared history—brief romance, unresolved tension—colors their collaboration as they're drawn into the enigma of Juliette Willoughby. Alice, a mysterious figure with a shadowy past, challenges them to look beyond the accepted narrative: Juliette's art is lost, her life a footnote to her lover Oskar Erlich's. But Alice's provocations spark a quest that will bind Patrick and Caroline together, both professionally and personally, as they begin to dig into the Willoughby family's secrets.

The Lost Journal

Caroline's research leads her to the Willoughby Bequest at Cambridge—a chaotic trove of Egyptological artifacts and family detritus. Amid the clutter, she discovers Juliette's passport, a pendant, and most crucially, her journal from Paris in 1937–38. The diary, filled with sketches and confessions, brings Juliette's voice to life: her passionate affair with Oskar, her flight from a stifling English upbringing, and her struggle to assert herself as an artist. The journal hints at trauma, obsession with Sphinxes, and a family history haunted by tragedy and possible madness. For Caroline, the journal is both a scholarly goldmine and a deeply personal touchstone, echoing her own fraught relationship with her mother and her fear of intimacy.

Surrealist Obsessions

Juliette's journal reveals her immersion in the Surrealist movement, her creative rivalry with Oskar, and her determination to paint her own reality. The "Self-Portrait as Sphinx" emerges as a work of defiance and coded autobiography, blending mythological motifs with personal trauma—her sister's drowning, her father's Egyptomania, and her own time in a mental institution. The painting's symbolism—six-breasted Sphinx, feline haunches, a drowned girl, a boatman—invites endless interpretation. Meanwhile, Patrick and Caroline's research uncovers the Willoughby family's pattern of loss, scandal, and the persistent rumor of a curse linked to their Egyptian collection.

The Willoughby Curse

The Willoughby legacy is marred by the drowning of Juliette's sister Lucy and the mysterious disappearance of Jane Herries, the "Missing Maid." The family's obsession with Egyptology, embodied in Cyril Willoughby's pyramid mausoleum and the Osiris Society he founded at Cambridge, feeds rumors of curses and dark rituals. As Patrick and Caroline dig deeper, they sense that the family's secrets are encoded not just in Juliette's art, but in the very stones of Longhurst Hall. The past is not dead—it is waiting to be unearthed.

The Osiris Society Initiation

Patrick's induction into the Osiris Society—a secretive, all-male club with roots in Egyptology—exposes the lingering influence of the Willoughby patriarch. The society's bizarre initiation, involving a sedated kitten and ancient incantations, is both farce and foreshadowing: the club's rituals echo the funerary magic Cyril Willoughby so obsessively collected. The society's signet ring, bearing the same "eye" as Juliette's pendant, links the present to the family's occult past. The club's members—Patrick, Harry Willoughby, and the troubled Freddie Talbot—will all play roles in the unfolding drama.

Fire and Ashes

In 1938 Paris, Juliette and Oskar's love affair ends in tragedy. A fire consumes their apartment, killing both and supposedly destroying all their work—including "Self-Portrait as Sphinx." The official story is accident, but Juliette's journal and the suspicions of those who knew her suggest otherwise. Was it arson, revenge, or a cover-up? The fire becomes the central trauma around which the novel's mysteries orbit: what survived, who was responsible, and what secrets died with Juliette?

Art, Love, and Betrayal

As Patrick and Caroline's research brings them closer, so does their personal connection. Their relationship, shadowed by Caroline's fear of love and Patrick's family baggage, mirrors the passionate, destructive bond between Juliette and Oskar. At a lavish party at Longhurst, Caroline's attempt to uncover the painting's fate leads to disaster: she is rebuffed by the Willoughbys, who are desperate to bury the past. Yet, in the chaos, Caroline finds and "rescues" the lost painting, setting off a chain of events that will reverberate for decades.

The Painting Resurfaces

Back in Cambridge, Patrick and Caroline struggle with the ethics of their discovery. To legitimize the painting's provenance, Patrick hatches a risky plan: plant it in a house clearance so they can buy it at auction. But at the sale, they are outbid by a mysterious phone bidder—Terry, Patrick's overlooked college neighbor, who will later become tech billionaire Dave White. The painting vanishes into private hands, only to reappear years later, setting the stage for a new round of intrigue.

Auction and Aftermath

The rediscovery of "Self-Portrait as Sphinx" transforms Caroline's career and the art world's understanding of Juliette. The painting's exhibition at Tate Modern, and Caroline's bestselling biography, bring overdue recognition to a forgotten woman artist. Yet the painting's provenance remains murky, and the wounds of the past—personal and historical—are far from healed. Patrick and Caroline's relationship falters under the strain of ambition, regret, and unresolved secrets.

Double Portraits

Decades later, a second "Self-Portrait as Sphinx" surfaces, offered for sale by Harry Willoughby in Dubai. Caroline is summoned to authenticate it, only to discover that both paintings are genuine, with subtle but significant differences—overpainted details, hidden symbols, and a narrative encoded in their imagery. The existence of two originals raises questions of forgery, identity, and the lengths to which the Willoughbys went to conceal their family's crimes. The mystery deepens: what is the secret the Sphinx is guarding?

Blackmail and Ghosts

As the Dubai sale approaches, blackmail notes and photographs threaten to expose Caroline's youthful theft and Harry's darkest secrets. The long-missing Freddie Talbot, presumed dead for decades, is revealed to be alive and living in Dubai with Athena, Caroline's estranged friend. Freddie's reappearance, and his role in Harry's murder, bring the story's buried traumas to a violent climax. The past refuses to stay buried.

The Dubai Dilemma

Patrick is arrested for Harry's murder, framed by circumstantial evidence and a broken champagne glass. Caroline, trapped in Dubai without her passport, races to clear his name. Tech mogul Dave White, the former "Terry," uses his surveillance empire to uncover the truth: Freddie, not Patrick, killed Harry, motivated by blackmail and a lifetime of resentment. The case exposes the dark side of wealth, technology, and the global art market, as well as the enduring power of old wounds.

The Secret in the Pyramid

The final pieces fall into place as Caroline and Patrick return to Longhurst, following the clues hidden in Juliette's painting. In the pyramid mausoleum, they discover a secret chamber containing the remains of Jane Herries and others—victims of Cyril Willoughby's deranged quest for resurrection, inspired by his obsession with Egyptian funerary magic. The painting's cryptic symbols—boat, pyramid, hieroglyphs—are revealed as a map to the truth: the Willoughby curse was not supernatural, but the legacy of a patriarch's madness and murder.

The Final Act

The truth about Juliette, the painting, and the Willoughby family is finally exposed. The dual existence of the "Self-Portrait as Sphinx" is explained: Juliette survived the fire, assumed the identity of Alice Long, and repainted her masterpiece in secret, planting clues for future generations. The novel's central mysteries—artistic authorship, female erasure, and the cost of silence—are resolved, but not without loss. Patrick and Caroline, scarred but wiser, find their way back to each other, determined to honor Juliette's legacy and their own.

Resurrection and Revelation

In the epilogue, the remains of Jane Herries are reburied, and the two versions of "Self-Portrait as Sphinx" are finally displayed together. Caroline, reflecting on the journey, realizes that Juliette's greatest act was not her art, but her survival: she reclaimed her story, her voice, and her agency, defying the forces that sought to erase her. The novel ends with the recognition that history is not fixed, but can be rewritten—if we are willing to look, to listen, and to believe in the possibility of resurrection.

Characters

Juliette Willoughby / Alice Long

Juliette is the novel's haunted heart: a brilliant, troubled British Surrealist who flees her oppressive family for Paris, only to be consumed by love, trauma, and the drive to create. Her "Self-Portrait as Sphinx" is both confession and riddle, encoding her grief, rage, and resistance. After surviving the fire that supposedly killed her, Juliette reinvents herself as Alice Long, living in obscurity but orchestrating the rediscovery of her own work. Her journey is one of self-assertion against erasure—by men, by family, by history—and her final act is a triumph of survival and self-authorship.

Caroline Cooper

Caroline is both detective and inheritor, her life shaped by loss, abuse, and the longing for connection. Her discovery of Juliette's journal and painting is both professional breakthrough and personal catharsis, mirroring her own struggle to overcome trauma and trust in love. Caroline's psychoanalytic depth—her fear of intimacy, her identification with lost women—drives the narrative's emotional core. Her relationship with Patrick is fraught but redemptive, and her ultimate recognition of Juliette/Alice's survival is a testament to the power of women's voices to endure.

Patrick Lambert

Patrick is a product of privilege and insecurity, shaped by his father's expectations and his own desire for significance. His journey from callow undergraduate to embattled gallery owner is marked by ethical compromises, romantic failures, and a longing for validation. Patrick's relationship with Caroline is both a source of hope and a site of repeated wounding. His complicity in the art world's machinations is balanced by genuine passion for discovery and justice. Ultimately, Patrick's growth lies in his willingness to confront the past and choose integrity over self-interest.

Oskar Erlich

Oskar is Juliette's older, celebrated Surrealist lover—brilliant, mercurial, and ultimately destructive. Their relationship is a crucible of creativity and violence, with Oskar's jealousy and volatility mirroring Juliette's own family traumas. His death in the fire is both literal and symbolic: the end of an era, the price of passion, and the catalyst for Juliette's transformation.

Harry Willoughby

Harry is the inheritor of Longhurst and the Willoughby legacy—a man burdened by family secrets, guilt, and the weight of expectation. His complicity in covering up Freddie's "death," his descent into paranoia and blackmail, and his ultimate murder in Dubai are the tragic consequences of a life spent evading the truth. Harry's arc is a study in the corrosive effects of privilege, denial, and unresolved trauma.

Freddie Talbot

Freddie is the wild card: Harry's cousin, addict, and eventual murderer. Presumed dead for decades, he reemerges in Dubai, driven by resentment and a sense of entitlement. Freddie's actions—blackmail, violence, and manipulation—are the dark mirror of the Willoughby family's own history of erasure and exploitation. His relationship with Athena is both toxic and redemptive, a partnership forged in exile and secrecy.

Athena Galanis

Athena is Caroline's glamorous, enigmatic friend, whose loyalty to Freddie leads her to deception and complicity. Her own family's fall from grace, her resourcefulness, and her ability to navigate elite worlds make her both ally and adversary. Athena's choices—especially her role in the Dubai auction scam—underscore the novel's themes of female agency, complicity, and the costs of survival.

Dave White / Terry

Once "Next-Door Terry," the ignored Cambridge neighbor, Dave becomes a billionaire tech mogul whose facial recognition empire is both tool and metaphor for the novel's obsession with identity and visibility. His acquisition of both Sphinx paintings, and his role in exposing the truth, is a subtle revenge on those who dismissed him. Dave embodies the power of the unseen to shape history.

Cyril Willoughby

Cyril is the origin of the Willoughby curse: a grieving father whose obsession with Egyptian resurrection magic leads him to murder Jane Herries and others in a deranged quest to bring his daughter Lucy back from the dead. His legacy is one of trauma, secrecy, and the transmission of violence across generations. Cyril's madness is both personal and symbolic—a warning about the dangers of unchecked power and patriarchal control.

Quentin Lambert

Patrick's father is a charming, unreliable art dealer whose involvement in forgeries and manipulation of provenance is both comic and sinister. His role in planting the painting at Longhurst, and his complicity in the novel's central mysteries, make him a linchpin of the plot. Quentin's relationship with Patrick is a study in generational disappointment and the longing for approval.

Plot Devices

Dual Timelines and Narrative Layering

The novel's structure alternates between the 1930s (Juliette's journal, the fire, the creation of the painting) and the 1990s/2020s (Caroline and Patrick's investigation, the Dubai auction, the murder). This layering allows for gradual revelation, dramatic irony, and the mirroring of personal and historical trauma. The reader is constantly invited to piece together the puzzle, with each timeline shedding light on the other.

Unreliable Narrators and Hidden Identities

The story is told through multiple voices—Caroline, Patrick, Juliette/Alice—each with their own blind spots, biases, and secrets. The ultimate twist—that Alice Long is Juliette, that the painting was repainted, that the "dead" are not always dead—relies on the reader's willingness to question appearances and accept the possibility of resurrection, both literal and metaphorical.

Art as Cipher and Confession

"Self-Portrait as Sphinx" is not just a work of art but a coded narrative, its imagery a riddle that, once solved, exposes murder, madness, and the cost of silence. The painting's overpainted details, mirrored versions, and symbolic motifs (Sphinx, boat, pyramid, hieroglyphs) are plot devices that drive both the mystery and the thematic exploration of female erasure and the rewriting of history.

Foreshadowing and Echoes

The novel is rich in foreshadowing: the Osiris Society's rituals, the recurring motif of resurrection, the family's obsession with Egypt, and the repeated disappearances and deaths. These echoes create a sense of inevitability and fate, while also inviting the reader to look for the hidden connections that will ultimately explain the mystery.

Modern Technology as Revelation

The use of facial recognition, CCTV, and digital forensics in the Dubai sections is both a plot device (solving the murder, exposing Freddie) and a thematic commentary on visibility, privacy, and the power of those who control the narrative. The contrast between lost women of the past and the all-seeing eye of the present is a central tension.

Analysis

"The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby" is both a literary thriller and a feminist reclamation, using the conventions of the art mystery to interrogate who gets to be remembered, who is silenced, and how the past can be recovered. Through its intricate plot—spanning decades, continents, and generations—it explores the ways in which women's voices and achievements are buried, overwritten, or claimed by others, and the extraordinary lengths required to reclaim them. The novel's central image—the Sphinx, both riddle and guardian—embodies the challenge of interpretation: to see what is hidden, to listen to the silenced, to piece together a story from fragments and absences. In the end, the book argues that resurrection is possible—not as magic, but as the hard, collective work of looking, listening, and refusing to accept the official version of events. The lessons are clear: history is not fixed, art is not neutral, and the act of bearing witness—of telling the truth, even in disguise—is itself a form of survival.

Last updated: May 5, 2025