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Iain Pears

Author of An Instance of the Fingerpost

18+ Works 15,694 Members 440 Reviews 71 Favorited

About the Author

Iain Pears was born in England in 1955. He has worked as an art historian, a TV consultant and a journalist. After several years working for Reuters, he went to Yale University to complete his book on eighteenth-century British art entitled The Discovery of Painting. He has written several novels show more include An Instance of the Fingerpost, The Dream of Scipio, Stone's Fall, Arcadia, and the Jonathan Argyll series. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Series

Works by Iain Pears

An Instance of the Fingerpost (1997) 5,257 copies
The Dream of Scipio (2002) 2,209 copies
Stone's Fall (2009) 1,438 copies
The Raphael Affair (1990) 1,029 copies
Arcadia (2015) 815 copies
The Portrait (2004) 801 copies
The Immaculate Deception (2000) 773 copies
The Titian Committee (1991) 740 copies
Giotto's Hand (1994) 701 copies
Death and Restoration (1996) 683 copies
The Bernini Bust (1992) 644 copies
The Last Judgement (1993) 575 copies
Pears Iain 1 copy

Associated Works

The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books (1997) — Contributor — 305 copies

Tagged

17th century (138) 20th century (90) art (383) art history (199) art history mystery (63) British (151) crime (313) crime fiction (137) detective (119) ebook (53) England (229) English (68) fantasy (81) fiction (2,142) France (110) historical (248) historical fiction (809) historical mystery (117) historical novel (70) history (102) Iain Pears (53) Italy (327) Jonathan Argyll (119) Kindle (53) literature (96) London (68) murder (88) mystery (1,761) novel (329) own (76) Oxford (103) read (136) Rome (134) science fiction (85) series (58) suspense (52) thriller (83) to-read (663) unread (112) Venice (85)

Common Knowledge

Members

Discussions

Group Read: Arcadia Part 6, Chapters 56-66 (End) in The Green Dragon (April 2022)
Group Read: Arcadia Part 5, Chapters 45-55 in The Green Dragon (March 2022)
Group Read: Arcadia Part 4, Chapters 34-44 in The Green Dragon (March 2022)
Group Read: Arcadia Part 3, Chapters 23-33 in The Green Dragon (March 2022)
Group Read: Arcadia Part 1, Chapters 1-11 in The Green Dragon (March 2022)
Group Read: Arcadia by Iain Pears in The Green Dragon (March 2022)
Group Read: Arcadia Part 2, Chapters 12-22 in The Green Dragon (March 2022)
Iain Pears, An Instance Of The Fingerpost in Historical Mysteries (February 2008)

Reviews

An artist living on an isolated island off the coast of Brittany just before WWI is visited by an eminent art critic, who used to be his mentor and now wants his portrait painted.

The whole book consists of a series of monologues from the artist to the sitter while he's painting, exploring what has brought them that point. Although the ending is fairly predictable early on it is only in the last 30 pages or so (out of 210) that we learn the motivation behind it. Something of a tour de force.… (more)
½
 
Flagged
Robertgreaves | 38 other reviews | May 27, 2024 |
Book Club Mystery - Raphael
 
Flagged
Docent-MFAStPete | 26 other reviews | May 27, 2024 |
A very standard mystery. A little bit of history, a little bit of art, likeable enough characters and a nice background story at the monastery
 
Flagged
cspiwak | 13 other reviews | Mar 6, 2024 |
It is interesting that I admired this book more than I enjoyed it. Everything was perfectly ployyed and masterfully put together, and yet it left me cold. I wonder if anyone else had that reaction?
 
Flagged
cspiwak | 73 other reviews | Mar 6, 2024 |

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Europe (1)

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Statistics

Works
18
Also by
1
Members
15,694
Popularity
#1,448
Rating
½ 3.7
Reviews
440
ISBNs
322
Languages
16
Favorited
71

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