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An Instance of the Fingerpostby Iain Pears
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:We are in Oxford in the 1660s — a time, and place, of great intellectual, scientific, religious and political ferment. Robert Grove, a fellow of New College is found dead in suspicious circumstances. A young woman is accused of his murder. We hear about the events surrounding his death from four witnesses: Marco da Cola, a Venetian Catholic intent on claiming credit for the invention of blood transfusion; Jack Prescott, the son of a supposed traitor to the Royalist cause determined to vindicate his father; John Wallis, chief cryptographer to both Cromwell and Charles II, a mathematician, theologican and inveterate plotter; and Anthony Wood, the famous Oxford antiquary. Each witness tells their version of what happened. Only one reveals the extraordinary truth. An Instance of the Fingerpost is a magnificent tour de force: an utterly compelling historical mystery story with a plot that twists and turns and keeps the reader guessing until the very last page. Review:"May well be the best 'historical mystery' ever written." The Sunday Boston Globe Review:"It is 1663, and England is wracked with intrigue and civil strife. When an Oxford don is murdered, it seems at first that the incident can have nothing to do with great matters of church and state....Yet, little is as it seems in this gripping novel, which dramatizes the ways in which witnesses can see the same events yet remember them falsely. Each of four narrators — a Venetian medical student, a young man intent on proving his late father innocent of treason, a cryptographer, and an archivist — fingers a different culprit...an erudite and entertaining tour de force." People Review:"Successful literary thrillers in the mold of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose are the stuff of a publisher's dreams, and in Pears' novel they may have found a near-perfect example of the genre...Pears, with a painstaking, almost forensic attention to detail, constructs his world like a master painter..." New York Times Review:"Fascinating...quite extraordinary...elevates the murder mystery to the category of high art." Los Angeles Times Book Review Review:"Brings not merely a huge cast of characters but a whole century vividly to life." Newsweek Review:"Riverhead is marketing the hell out of historian Iain Pears' first novel, An Instance of the Fingerpost, and the media seems turned on by the hype — you'd almost believe this was 'the literary thriller of the year.' Don't be surprised if midway through this sprawling and seemingly endless tome, however, you feel like suing the publishers (and certain critics) for fraud. If this book is a thriller, then I'm Edgar Allan Poe." Daniel Reitz, Salon Review:"A near-perfect example of the genre." Andrew Miller, The New York Times Book Review Synopsis:In England of the 1660s, a young woman is accused of the murder of a New College fellow, who has been found dead under mysterious circumstances. Four extremely diverse witnesses give their accounts of the events — but only one reveals the extraordinary truth. About the AuthorIain Pears is the author of the New York Times bestseller An Instance of the Fingerpost and the national bestseller The Dream of Scipio, as well as a series of acclaimed detective novels, a book of art history, and countless articles on artistic, financial, and historical subjects. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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