THE GOLDENACRE by Philip Miller.  Mr. Miller is a resident of Edinburgh and has long been a newspaperman specializing in the arts. Both backgrounds are brought to play in his fine crime novel about an art deception that leads to a host of vicious murders. This Edinburgh is not the sentimental one conjured up by Andrew McCall Smith’s work.  It is gritty, full of imperfect characters, and a fair amount of suffering.  Specifically, we have an already troubled art expert named Thomas Tallis who has to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to explain that he has no relation to the far more famous medieval composer. He comes to town to help authenticate a famous painting and runs into a shadowy conspiracy to bilk Scotland out of 12 million pounds. The fair city of Edinburgh (that is sometimes called “the Athens of the North”) is nicely evoked from the broad expanses of Princes Street to the bleak coastline.  Just when the game is winding up, there are some closing plot twists that put this outing solidly into a genre I would label Scottish Noir.  I give it four stars. ****