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An Instance of the Fingerpost
"It is 1663, and England is wracked with intrigue and civil strife. When an Oxford don is murdered, it seems at first that the incident can have nothing to do with great matters of church and state....Yet, little is as it seems in this gripping novel, which dramatizes the ways in which witnesses can see the same events yet remember them falsely. Each of four narrators--a Venetian medical student, a young man intent on proving his late father innocent of treason, a cryptographer, and an archivist--fingers a different culprit...an erudite and entertaining tour de force." --People
Iain Pears's The Dream of Scipio and The Portrait are also available from Riverhead Books.
Book Details
- Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
- Publish Date: Apr 1st, 2000
- Pages: 704
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 8.97in - 5.96in - 1.48in - 1.61lb
- EAN: 9781573227957
- Recommended age: 18-UP
- Categories: • Mystery & Detective - Historical• Mystery & Detective - Traditional• Historical - General
About the Author
More books by Iain Pears
What people are saying
New history of Rome's heyday - Pax - out now! Dinosaur lover. Stonehenge Tunnel hater. A 'leading English cricketer' - The Times. Podcast: @theresthistory
A splendid evening at the launch of @JLFLitfest, where I meet one of my great literary heroes: Iain Pears, author of what I think is the one of the very best historical novels ever written, An Instance Of The Fingerpost https://t.co/EeO9TtofNR
Author of Hearts of Ice and Stone, dark, gothic fantasy and the YA Alex Trueman Chronicles.
@The_WriteReads @HollyRawlins2 @ReadtoRamble @Tbeckerlegge @RebellionPub Wow! An extraordinary review of what sounds like an extraordinary book. For me, I need to like the characters (or at least most of them) to fully enjoy a book. I struggled with Iain Pears’ ‘ An instance of the fingerpost’ for that reason, although it was a great book.
C++ nerd, pitier of fools. @RocksetCloud. Not Rolex's little brother, not the coach of OM, not Tudor Dixon (she's horrible). Engaged to the amazing @liddybird.
@susanthesquark I’ll recommend this to anybody who will listen: An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears, it’s a thoroughly engrossing piece of historical fiction.
Praise for this book
"Ingenious."--The Philadelphia Inquirer
"[A] crafty, utterly mesmerizing intellectual thriller...Don't miss it." --The Washington Post Book World
"If you liked Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, you should run to buy Iain Pears's lavishly erudite historical mystery." --The New York Times
"Fascinating...quite extraordinary...elevates the murder mystery to the category of high art." --Los Angeles
"Extraordinary...this thriller brings not merely a huge cast of characters but a whole century vividly to life." --Newsweek
"[A] novel that will have you sitting up all night and calling in sick the next day. It's that hard to put down." --Houston Chronicle
"Enthralling." --San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
What people are saying
New history of Rome's heyday - Pax - out now! Dinosaur lover. Stonehenge Tunnel hater. A 'leading English cricketer' - The Times. Podcast: @theresthistory
A splendid evening at the launch of @JLFLitfest, where I meet one of my great literary heroes: Iain Pears, author of what I think is the one of the very best historical novels ever written, An Instance Of The Fingerpost https://t.co/EeO9TtofNR
Author of Hearts of Ice and Stone, dark, gothic fantasy and the YA Alex Trueman Chronicles.
@The_WriteReads @HollyRawlins2 @ReadtoRamble @Tbeckerlegge @RebellionPub Wow! An extraordinary review of what sounds like an extraordinary book. For me, I need to like the characters (or at least most of them) to fully enjoy a book. I struggled with Iain Pears’ ‘ An instance of the fingerpost’ for that reason, although it was a great book.