Pears, Iain — An Instance of the Fingerpost

New York, Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Books, 1998. First Edition. Hardcover. Size: Large 8vo 9" - 10. Sturdy, attractive, tightly bound in hardcover format, generally clean, lightly toned at worst, minimal rubbing to extremities. Bright and shiny dust jacket, illustrated, little worn. The massive, sprawling novel is set in England in the 1660s just as Charles II has been restored to the throne following years of the English civil war and Thomas Cromwell's short-lived republic fashioned in the ruins of King Henry VIII. Sort of set in halls of academia, in the Oxford University of great scientific, religious, and political ferment in the wake of the murder of New College fellow. A young woman is blamed. Four witnesses are heard from: "an Italian physician intent on claiming credit for the invention of blood transfusion; the son of an alleged Royalist traitor; a master cryptographer who has worked for both Cromwell and the king; and a renowned Oxford antiquarian." Rashamon-like, each witness "tells his own version of what happened. Only one reveals the extraordinary truth" (from the publisher's blurb). Akin perhaps to Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose in Scope, but hopefully not with Sean Connery's Scottish brogue to ruin things. 691 pp. plus chronology, a note on the author, and a note on sources.Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. . . . Near Fine/Very Good,