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. 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.
A tour de force in the tradition of Iain Pears' international bestseller, , weaves a story of love and high finance into the fabric of a page-turning thriller. A novel to stand alongside and .A panoramic novel with a riveting mystery at its heart, 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.
Set in Provence during the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, the Black Death in the 14th century, and World War II, this novel follows the fortunes of three men — a Gallic aristocrat, a poet and an intellectual who joins the Vichy government.
