An Instance of the Fingerpost

An Instance of the Fingerpost
by Iain Pears
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Hardcover, 691 pages
Published by Putnam Pub Group
Publication date: March 1998
Dimensions (in inches): 2.01 x 9.60 x 6.46
ISBN: 1573220825

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Amazon.com:
An Instance of the Fingerpost is that rarest of all possible literary beasts--a mystery powered as much by ideas as by suspects, autopsies, and smoking guns. Hefty, intricately plotted, and intellectually ambitious, Fingerpost has drawn the inevitable comparisons to Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose and, for once, the comparison is apt.

The year is 1663, and the setting is Oxford, England, during the height of Restoration political intrigue. When Dr. Robert Grove is found dead in his Oxford room, hands clenched and face frozen in a rictus of pain, all the signs point to poison. Rashomon-like, the narrative circles around Grove's murder as four different characters give their version of events: Marco da Cola, a visiting Italian physician--or so he would like the reader to believe; Jack Prestcott, the son of a traitor who fled the country to avoid execution; Dr. John Wallis, a mathematician and cryptographer with a predilection for conspiracy theories; and Anthony Wood, a mild-mannered Oxford antiquarian whose tale proves to be the book's "instance of the fingerpost." (The quote comes from the philosopher Bacon, who, while asserting that all evidence is ultimately fallible, allows for "one instance of a fingerpost that points in one direction only, and allows of no other possibility.")

Like The Name of the Rose, this is one whodunit in which the principal mystery is the nature of truth itself. Along the way, Pears displays a keen eye for period details as diverse as the early days of medicine, the convoluted politics of the English Civil War, and the newfangled fashion for wigs. Yet Pears never loses sight of his characters, who manage to be both utterly authentic denizens of the 17th century and utterly authentic human beings. As a mystery, An Instance of the Fingerpost is entertainment of the most intelligent sort; as a novel of ideas, it proves equally satisfying.

nbaa@comcat.com from Pennsylvania , 04/27/98, rating=10:
the most engrossing and amazing book I have read in years
I simply can’t wait to reccommend this book to my reading friends - the four narrators come alive in their narrations as distinct individuals - as does this, at once, very remote time and the all too commonality of the human experience which we share with the world of the 1670’s. I would take exception to the reader who disliked the 2nd narration because of lack of sympathy with the narrator, though certainly unlikable, he was so masterfully created and comprehensible through his words - one has to be simply dumbstruck by the depth of knowledge and breadth of imagination that is behind such a masterful work

103226.1605@compuserve.com from St. Louis, MO , 04/26/98, rating=6:
A dark medieval mystery; heavy going.
A densely crafted medieval mystery reminiscent of Umberto Eco's "Name of the Rose." Added to the cruelty of Restoration England is the pustulating evil of Pears' characters. Not light reading, but rich in period history and brightened by a surprise ending.