Stone's Fall

Starred review from March 16, 2009
British author Pears matches the brilliance of his bestselling An Instance of the Fingerpost
(1998) with this intricate historical novel, which centers on the death of a wealthy financier. In part one, after John Stone falls to his death from a window in his London mansion in 1909, Stone's seductive, much younger widow, Elizabeth, hires Matthew Braddock, who works as a journalist, to trace a child of her late husband's she never knew existed until the child is named in his will. Braddock, a novice in the world of finance, uncovers evidence that Stone's actual net worth was far less than commonly believed, even as he finds himself falling for his client. In part two, set in 1890 Paris, Henry Cort, a shadowy spy, provides another perspective on the bewitching Elizabeth. Stone's own reminiscences from his time in Venice in 1867 cast further light on the circumstances of his demise. The pages will fly by for most readers, who will lose themselves in the clear prose and compelling plot. 10-city author tour.

Starred review from April 1, 2009
A learned, witty and splendidly entertaining descent into the demimondes of international espionage, arms dealing, financial hanky-panky and other favorite pastimes of those without conscience.

"You will have to believe whatever you think is most likely," sagely counsels one of the many shadowy characters in this latest outing by historical whodunit specialist Pears (The Portrait, 2005, etc.). Early on, the fellow being asked to do the believing is a journalist who takes on a curious but lucrative side job tracking down the illegitimate heir of a minor member of the nobility, one who just happens to have a fantastic estate at stake. Baron Ravenscliff recently fell out of a window and broke into many pieces; says a fellow hack,"Only an accident, unfortunately." Ah, but was it? Drawn into this promising query, our enterprising narrator finds himself doing what a good sleuth in Edwardian England might do: He consults with street characters out of Dickens and terrorists worthy of Conrad's Secret Agent, sniffs out intelligence, beats the constabulary at its own game and gets—well, nowhere, really, since so little of what he learns about the baron, the former John Stone, quite adds up. As he muses,"So Elizabeth, Lady Ravenscliff, ne Countess Elizabeth Hadik-Barkoczy von Futak uns Szala, transformed herself into Jenny the Red, revolutionary anarchist of Frankfurt. Repeat that sentence and see how easily you believe it. Then you will grasp my difficulties." Pears's tale turns back on itself and into the past until, deep into the book, we find that our first narrator has gone underground and none other than Stone is telling his own tale, which by this time has gotten deliciously tangled. Suffice it to say that the long but fast-paced story involves, among many other things, plenty of spy-versus-spy stuff, a whiff of romance and a plan to fill the world with enough all-destroying weapons that no one would ever dare go to war—an epic James Bond tale, in other words, by way of G.K. Chesterton and perhaps Arturo Prez-Reverte.

Classy crime fiction, delightfully written, with few straight lines in sight.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from April 1, 2009
An aging ex-reporter attends the funeral of an elderly widow. A solicitor approaches him and hands him a packet of papers that were to be delivered to him only after the woman's death. Reading them, he is transported back to events he has never forgotten. In 1909, industrialist-arms seller John Stone fell to his death from the window of his study. In his will, he left a bequest to an unknown daughter. His widow asked the young reporter to find the daughter, setting him on a search that transforms his life. Back through time the story goesLondon 1909, Paris 1890, Venice 1867with startling revelations at every step. This eminently readable tale is like one of those Russian dolls in which a tiny doll nests inside a bigger one and the bigger one inside another one bigger yet. The further you read, the more complicated it is until everything falls together in the final pages. This latest from Pears ("Dream of Scipio") is in the best sense of the word an old-fashioned novel, populated with vital characters and bursting at the seams with narrative vigor. Highly recommended for all general collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 1/09.]David Keymer, Modesto, CA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2009
Pears triumphant return to broad-canvas historical mysteries will draw comparisons to his magisterial Instance of the Fingerpost (1998), but it is really more like his lesser-known but equally dazzling Dream of Scipio (2002). In that novel and in this one, Pears constructs an intricate three-part harmony, telling a complex story across three separate time periods, seeming to lose us occasionally in the chord changes but always resurrecting a theme at just the right moment to hold the whole piece together. The tale begins with a simple premise: Did London financier John Stone fall to his death accidentally, or was he murdered? To answer that question, however, requires far more than conventional sleuthing. Moving from London in 1909 to Paris in 1890 and then to Venice in 1867, Pears melds first-person narratives from a journalist hired to write Stones biography, from a banker turned spy who was involved in Stones life at several crucial junctures, and from Stone himself. The question of the mans death is answered in the end, but by the time the answer comes, it is far less important than the context surrounding it. As David Liss, in A Conspiracy of Paper (2000), explored the beginnings of stock trading in the late eighteenth century, so Pearsmoving ahead about a centurytakes us deep inside the world of international finance at its infancy. Making sense of the byzantine ways in which money and politics commingle would seem more than enough for one novel, but Pears has much more on his plate: a look at the first great age of espionage, prior to World War I; a snapshot of how the twentieth-century arms race was born; and a mesmerizing portrait of nineteenth-century Venice. Does Pears attempt too much in this 880-page opus? Remarkably, no. It doesnt just hang together loosely, in thesprawling manner of most multigenerational epics; rather, it seemswelded in place, each part driving the next, almost like a fugue.Certainly, one of the best historical mysteries of the last several years.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)