Divorced American academic David Reid teaches English by day and spends his free time writing mystery novels that nobody reads. In London he meets his new editor, Kate. Blonde and beautiful, she is also mysterious and aloof—and soon captivates David.

The feeling seems mutual and the two are soon wed, but Kate quickly spirals into a deep sadness. In less than two years, she leaves David and heads to New York City. Just as the shock of her absence sets in, David receives a call announcing Kate’s instant death under a subway train.

Was Kate trying to return to David when she was killed? Was it an accident? A suicide? A murder? The more David learns, the less he wants to know—especially when he discovers Kate had been having an affair with French novelist Marc Rougemont, whose work she was allegedly translating.

As David searches for the truth about his wife, he becomes fixated on two paintings of women by Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, for whom David and Kate shared a passion that bordered on obsession. Was his wife as unknowable as the subjects of these cryptic, beautifully rendered portraits?

“The Discovery of Light, J.P. Smith’s fourth novel, may be his most ambitious work so far. Smith characteristically provides a compelling, suspenseful plot featuring attempted murder, deception, suicide and adultery. But he adds another dimension in his new book: a counterplot about the nature of art and the creative spirit that is a homage to painter Jan Vermeer.... But writing a compelling, intricately woven novel of suspense and human relations does not suffice for Smith – he takes this a step further. ‘None of us deserves the banality of real life,’ he concludes on the last page. ‘For us there is only the richness of art.’ ”
—The Boston Globe

“Smith is masterful, maintaining a surface as smooth and inscrutable as Vermeer’s, toying with puzzles of perception, imagination, and truth. An arresting, erudite, and wonderfully eerie performance.”

—Booklist

Originally published by Viking Penguin in 1992.

The Discovery of Light was a 1992 Barnes & Noble Discover title. It can be purchased at most online booksellers, as well as through independent bookshops.