Stone's Fall
"[3] Kirkus Reviews said "A learned, witty and splendidly entertaining descent into the demimondes of international espionage, arms dealing, financial hanky-panky and other favorite pastimes of those without conscience."Stone's Fall is constructed as an intricate and, at almost 600 pages, hefty, puzzle, but because the end of the story is known from the outset, its revelations must be cleverly managed if the plot is to retain sufficient tension.This sprawling, unconventional, occasionally dazzling novel ends with an unconvincing and unnecessary denouement which serves only to undermine the foundations of the elaborate edifice he has worked so painstakingly to create."[6] The New York Times wrote "Alas, the plot is now a monster and cannot be resolved without the supernatural, sexual deviancy, the precision engineering of high explosives, narcotics and incest."[7] The Telegraph said "Fans of Pears’s humdinger of a historical thriller An Instance of the Fingerpost (1997) will not be surprised to learn this is also a juicy mystery with lashings of period detail and recondite information: by the end of the book most readers will know enough about the construction of torpedoes, for example, to have a go at making their own."