Stone's Fall [Hardcover]

Stone’s Fall is another novel to add lustre to a career that has had few missteps – and it is a book that shows no signs the author’s skill is waning. Iain Pears’ writing won’t be to everyone’s taste, but isn't that true of anything of quality? This is historical crime of an intelligent order, with a wide, time-spanning canvas that moves from London in the Edwardian era to Paris and Venice.

In 1909, a rich manufacturer of weapons has purloined the concept of the torpedo from another man, one of the reasons for his fabulous wealth. But he falls to his death from a window, and his widow, the Countess Elizabeth, commissions a journalist to investigate her late husband’s life and death – with the mystifying will he left as the fulcrum. As the journalist, Braddock, digs deeper, he uncovers very little -- and fifty year pass before a remarkable revelation comes his way.

A glance at Iain Pears’ earlier novels such as An Instance of the Fingerpost and The Portrait reveals the customary impeccable craftsmanship, on display once again in the new book. With his admirable skill at matching clever plotting with strikingly drawn characters, Pears is clearly a different commodity from his contemporaries (a conclusion also demonstrated by the beguiling The Dream of Scipio, set in Provence at three key points of Western civilisation). What is most encouraging about the critical and (to some degree) the commercial success of Iain Pears’ books is the encouraging signal it sends about readers’ willingness to engage with fiction that demands more than just easy acquiescence. A novel such as Stone’s Fall will not reveal its secrets to you without a certain commitment – which is why the author is something special in a dumbed-down, Big Brother-watching world. --Barry Forshaw --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

'fireworks, inventiveness and excitement of part three and a curmudgeonly inventor of torpedoes' --Evening Standard

`it is his interest in the peculiar effects that money has on human beings that makes him a good novelist.'
--Daily Telegraph --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

'absorbing and also timely'. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

`this thoughtful, thoroughly satisfying novel... clever storytelling to reach imaginative heights' --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

`elegant and satisfying ... absorbing mystery' --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

The long-awaited return of one of our greatest historical thriller writers. A book to rival his international bestseller An Instance of the Fingerpost. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

`Pears is a bold storyteller with ambitions beyond the confines of genre.' --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

`Utterly absorbing and a rare delight.' --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

`Sometimes you get a novel that is purely enjoyable, Stone's Fall is such a book.' --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

`an indefatigably clever storyteller...witty, laconic dialogue; a galloping pace;...the concluding passages...detonate a series of surprises.' --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

`The novel is above all a romp, albeit an exceptionally intelligent and entertaining one.'
--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

A tour de force in the tradition of Iain Pears’ international bestseller, An Instance of the Fingerpost, Stone’s Fall weaves a story of love and high finance into the fabric of a page-turning thriller. A novel to stand alongside Atonement and The Remains of the Day.

A panoramic novel with a riveting mystery at its heart, Stone’s Fall is a quest, a love story, and a tale of murder – richly satisfying and completely engaging on many levels. It centres on the career of a very wealthy financier and the mysterious circumstances of his death, cast against the backdrop of WWI and Europe’s first great age of espionage, the evolution of high-stakes international finance and the beginning of the twentieth century’s arms race. Stone’s Fall is a major return to the thriller form that first launched Iain Pears onto bestseller lists around the world and that earned him acclaim as a mesmerizing storyteller.

In his most dazzling and brilliant novel since An Instance of the Fingerpost, Iain Pears tells the story of John Stone, financier and armaments manufacturer, a man so wealthy that in the years before World War One he was able to manipulate markets, industries and indeed whole countries and continents.

A panoramic novel with a riveting mystery at its heart, Stone's Fall is a quest to discover how and why John Stone dies, falling out of a window at his London home.

Chronologically, it goes backwards - London in 1909, then Paris in 1890, and finally Venice in 1867 - and Stone's character and motivation deepen as the book progresses; in the first part he is almost an abstraction, existing only in the memory of those who knew him; in the second he is a character, but only a secondary one; in the third he is the narrator of the story. A quest, then, but also a love story and a murder mystery, set against the backdrop of the evolution of high-stakes international finance, Europe's first great age of espionage and the start of the twentieth century's arms race.

Like Fingerpost, Stone's Fall is an intricate and richly satisfying puzzle, completely engaging on many levels, a triumphant return for one of the world's great storytellers.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

'A juicy mystery with lashings of period detail' Daily Telegraph

'Engrossing and intelligent, it's the best sort of page-turner' Daily Mail

'Exceptionally intelligent and entertaining' Sunday Telegraph

'I cannot remember enjoying a book as much as Stone's Fall' Malcolm Gladwell, Observer

John Stone, a man so wealthy that in the years before World War One he was able to manipulate markets, industries and indeed whole countries and continents, has been found dead in mysterious circumstances. His beautiful young widow commissions a journalist to carry out an unusual bequest in his will but as he begins his research he soon discovers a story far more complex than he could have ever imagined...

As the story moves backwards through time, from London in 1909 to Paris in 1809, before concluding in Venice in 1867, the mystery of John Stone's life and loves begins to unravel. The result is a spellbinding novel that is both a quest for the truth, a love story that spans decades and a compelling murder mystery.

'The assurance and invention with which the novel is written are alike remarkable. Utterly absorbing and a rare delight' Allan Massie, Scotsman

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Iain Pears was born in 1955. He is the author of seven detective novels, a book of art history and countless articles on artistic, financial and historical subjects, and three novels, An Instance of the Fingerpost, The Dream of Scipio and The Portrait. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.