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  • Published: 2 August 2010
  • ISBN: 9780099516170
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 608
  • RRP: $35.00

Stone's Fall




The long-awaited return of one of our greatest historical thriller writers. A book to rival his international bestseller An Instance of the Fingerpost.

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.

  • Published: 2 August 2010
  • ISBN: 9780099516170
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 608
  • RRP: $35.00

About the author

Iain Pears

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.

Also by Iain Pears

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Praise for Stone's Fall

A juicy mystery with lashings of period detail

Daily Telegraph

Absorbing and also timely

Jessica Mann, Literary Review

this thoughtful, thoroughly satisfying novel... clever storytelling to reach imaginative heights

Waterstone's Books Quarterly

Iain Pears has an uncanny historical sense ... splendid return to the grand 19th-century novel

Jane Jakeman, Independent

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

Amber Pearson, Daily Mail

Pears is in a class of his own; no one else could possibly succeed in making the world of big finance so hugely entertaining.

www.thetruthaboutbooks.com

Fireworks, inventiveness and excitement of part three and a curmudgeonly inventor of torpedoes

Philippa Stockley, Evening Standard

An indefatigably clever storyteller...witty, laconic dialogue; a galloping pace, particularly in the first and third narratives; the author's silky, fluid prose; and above all the concluding passages, which detonate a series of surprises as poignant as they are grim

Daniel Mallory, Times Literary Supplement

The novel is above all a romp, albeit an exceptionally intelligent and entertaining one

David Robson, Sunday Telegraph

Well worth the ride

Sunday Telegraph

A complex novel of mystery and suspense narrated by three fascinating characters...I thoroughly recommend this title

Landers Bookshop, Independent on Sunday

The assurance and invention with which the novel is written are alike remarkable. Utterly absorbing and a rare delight

Alan Massie, Scotsman

I cannot remember enjoying a book as much as Stone's Fall

Malcolm Gladwell, Observer