Books: Dutch Double-Dealing; Tulip Fever. by Deborah Moggach (Heinemann, Pounds 14.99). Reviewed by Stephen Harrison

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Interleaved within the pages of Deborah Moggach's latest novel are reproductions of 16 paintings by Dutch 17th-century masters.

Gimmicky this may be - but the trick works.

Moggach's tale is set in outwardly ordered and prosperous Amsterdam when the city was queen of a mercantile empire spanning the trade routes of the world of 350 or so years ago.

Legitimate buying and selling, however, was not the only passion of the city's people of that era.

Burghers with cash to spare were also gripped by the desire to see themselves and their families immortalised on canvas, and get-rich-quick merchants were inflamed by the riches to be gained by mad …