The Red Hat in question in John Bayley"s novel is the headgear worn by a young woman in a Vermeer masterpiece; it is also the McGuffin that gets the plot rolling. At the center of Bayley"s tale is Nancy Deverell, a rather androgynous young woman who travels from London to the Netherlands with two friends to view the Vermeer exhibition. Nancy"s companions are Charles, a gay man, and Chloe, Nancy"s best friend and Charles"s fiancée. Once at the exhibition, Nancy realizes she could be the twin of the woman in Vermeer"s Girl in a Red Hat. Before you can say chapeau, Nancy finds herself involved with a mysterious stranger who might be a secret agent or possibly a bellboy and up to her neck in kidnapping, terrorism, and murder--or maybe not. Bayley, a leading British critic, plays an energetic literary shell game with his characters which may have fans of postmodern fiction clamoring for more.