“There are some embroidered waistcoats . . . They are very old. A museum might be glad of them. . . . There are some pictures too,” Mrs. Hovenden brought out with a fresh effort, “oil paintings that were in the rector’s family.”

The kindness of Dr George Sandilands towards an elderly patient, and her insistence on repaying him with the detritus of her attic, sets in motion a comedy of errors that rocks the art world. Dr Sandilands finally accepts a stack of begrimed paintings, to the horror of his eldest daughter, a stern housekeeper. But his younger daughter is prepared to be swept up in the romance of old treasures, and her boss, an amateur art connoisseur, develops a theory about the artworks and clings to it like a dog with a bone. Enter an art expert who’s not above some shady maneuvers, his adoring secretary, the director of the local art museum, and a sleazy London dealer.

Doris Langley Moore has packed her unpredictable, compulsively readable plot with subtlety, wit, and insight, and with an array of characters both lovable and so delectably nefarious that they’re begging for their just deserts. All Done by Kindness is a rollicking masterpiece of tight plotting and unexpected machinations. This new edition features an introduction by Sir Roy Strong.