The son of a reclusive historian finds his mother's drowned body in the tributary of the River Cam that runs through her garden. She is clutching a glass prism. Elizabeth Vogelsang's magnum opus, a book on Isaac Newton's alchemy, is incomplete. Lydia Brooke, a writer friend of the dead historian, returns to Cambridge to the funeral. It is five years since she has seen Elizabeth's son, Cameron Brown, with whom she has had an intermittent love affair that began years earlier.
Cambridge, she discovers, is in the midst of an upsurge of attacks by animal rights extremists. Cameron, who, as a neuroscientist uses animal experimentation, has been targeted. Cameron asks Lydia to act as a paid ghostwriter in the completion of his mother's book, Alchemist. Lydia agrees to the proposal and moves into Elizabeth's strange house, a triangular shaped studio on the banks of the Cam. Soon Lydia finds herself entangled, not only with Cameron, but also with a four-hundred year-old murder mystery, a network of 17th century alchemists and a ghostly figure intent on disrupting her work.

Strange book - well written

Posted

Received the other day with thanks. Looking forward to reading it!

I agree - strange book...

I liked the writing - enough that I'll pick up another book from this author again. However, I felt the Stott dwelled a bit too much on the book that Elizabeth was writing. While the excerpts from the book were interesting, I felt that space could have been better used furthering the story in the present day. I felt the "twist" at the end was completely believable (and somewhat expected) but Stott should have given us more in that area. The connection on how we got to that point wasn't really made.

Overall, a decent book.

This book is heading out into the wilds of Guelph to help stock one of the city's wonderful Little Free Libraries. Which one or when, I cannot say - that will be up to the discretion of the owners!