Dolly and the Singing Bird // Photogenic Soprano — Dorothy Dunnett

This fast-paced, sophisticated and often hilarious mystery by a distinguished historical novelist introduces Johnson Johnson, a famous but enigmatic portrait painter whose interests, it soon becomes obvious, range far beyond painting, and his sailing yacht, the Dolly. The singing bird of the title is Tina Rossi, the world's leading colorature soprano, who goes to the Edinburgh Festival largely because it will give her a chance to see her lover, scientist Kenneth Holmes, who is working on top-secret research on the Hebrides island of Rum. But when she goes to their secret meeting place she finds not Kenneth but an unknown corpse. Then Johnson Johnson turns up; Kenneth is accused of sabotage; and Johnson and Tina sail in a race through the Hebrides on the Dolly--and it turns out that far more than sport is at stake.