A solidly built, innocently bookish diversion with a distinct Masterpiece Theater flavor.
He’s a book-loving Brit who’s skeptical about modernity; she’s a tech-savvy Yank who talks too much. Is it possible this unlikely pair of “Grail buddies” could forge a meeting of minds—and even hearts—while tracking down one of the world’s most revered treasures?
In his latest literary mystery, Lovett (The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge, 2015, etc.) supplements his trademark meld of books, romance, and adventure with an element of (fairly English) humor and some nods in the direction of P.G. Wodehouse. Set in the fantasy English town of Barchester, a place invented by Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope but used by other writers since, it introduces 40-year-old fuddy-duddy academic Arthur Prescott, who lives a bachelor’s life of literature, conversation, and love for Barchester Cathedral. But Arthur’s orderly existence is about to be upended by the arrival of 26-year-old American Bethany Davis, who's been given the job of digitizing the ancient manuscripts in the cathedral’s library. Arthur and Bethany share a fascination with the legendary, lost magical cup of the Holy Grail, which Arthur’s grandfather told him, in secret, was hidden somewhere at Barchester. Arthur has also long sought the missing Book of Ewolda, a life of the sixth-century founder of the monastery that became the cathedral. More of a romp than Lovett’s preceding novels, this tale interleaves its sometimes-comic 21st-century sleuthing with episodes from Barchester’s—and England’s—history that give clues to St. Ewolda and the Grail while charting the dogged evolution of Christian faith over some two millennia. There’s lots of research too, on everything from code-cracking to the creation of vellum, but it’s underpinned by a pleasing treasure hunt mixed with the romantic involvement of two genially mismatched figures.
A solidly built, innocently bookish diversion with a distinct Masterpiece Theater flavor.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56251-8
Page Count: 321
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992
ISBN: 1400031702
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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