Stone’s Fall – a backward novel

When I picked up this book, I was so delirious with excitement that I could hardly stand it…espionage, financial market manipulation, Paris and London…Elizabeth Ravenscliff, a recent widow to very well-respected John Stone, hires Matthew Braddock, a newspaper crime reporter, to find out what happened to her husband. Did he jump out the window to his death or was he pushed and why? We begin the story at the end, which I sometimes find intriguing, however, in this story, I think I may have enjoyed it better if it had been forward-looking, rather than backward. Iain Pears asbolutely delivers the drama and cliffhangers, but every time you are drawn in, the story goes back to being a somewhat banal one, except for the ending, which is a twist, but seems out of place. I would not recommend this as a “must-read” however, as always, there were a few lines that piqued my interest.

“But sometimes the lure of life is irresistable.” Isn’t that the truth? Aren’t there times that you find your common sense goes straight out of the window and all you can think about is the moment. If you haven’t had this feeling, I implore you to. As I continue to get older, my regrets become less and less. And you?

And one line that reminds me about the joy of reading and escapism.  

“You have been educated, I know. Books to you are commonplace, something you can take for granted. But for me, such books were like a weary traveler, in the desert finding an oasis…books taught me of friendship and loyalty, of betrayal and how to suspect others. And it taught me to dream of worlds and people and lives that I had never thought existed.”