Touchstone

Although “Touchstone” got off to a rather confusing start (I wasn’t sure who I was reading about there for a while…), after the character of Bennett Grey was introduced, this book kicked into vintage Laurie R. King style and I was hooked.

This is a gripping story with characters more fully fleshed out than in your usual mystery/thriller. At times, Grey’s emotional pain was so strong that it practically leapt off the page. “Touchstone” has many of the usual elements of a thriller (twists, turns, doubting one character after another, an English country house…) and yet the reader gets far more than that. Beyond the mystery, there is also the sense that the reader truly is in the minds of Bennett Grey and Harris Stuyvesant. show more The relationship that develops between these two disparate people is much of what kept me reading, and enjoying, “Touchstone”. show less

Touchstone – Laurie R. King
Audio performance by Jefferson Mays
4stars

This is the first book of a detective series by Laurie King. I’m already a committed fan of her Holmes/ Mary Russell series and I’ve also enjoyed many of the books featuring the contemporary San Francisco police detective, Kate Martinelli. This book combines some of the best features of those books with a new detective. Like the Mary Russell books, it is historical fiction set in England between the wars. It features a tough, hard-headed FBI agent named Harris Stuyvesant. The storyline resembles the suspense/thriller plots of the contemporary Martinelli series.

Harris arrives in England days before the 1926 General Strike. He is on the trail of an show more anarchist/bomber. As a detective, Harris fits a stereotype; he’s intelligent and brash, a bit too quick with his fists and a push over for a pretty girl. He is not popular with his superiors and is always on the verge of being fired. As a WWI veteran, he also sufferers from lingering shell shock. An extreme form of shell shock is pivotal to the character of Bennett Grey. Grey’s war experience left him crippled with unnaturally heightened perceptions. The growing threat of a terror plot connects Harris, Bennett Grey, and the despicable Major Carstairs of British Intelligence.

This book is thick with historical detail. The seething political unrest is set against a British Manor house with its aristocratic inhabitants. Two of the other leading characters, Sarah Grey and Laura Hurleigh, tap into the changing role of women and feminist frustrations. King gives each character a back story with details that encompass the Great War, the rise of socialism, the history and traditions of anarchism, along with their current and failed love affairs.

Fans of Laurie King’s police procedural books may feel this story is too slow with all of its background detail. Fans of the Mary Russell series may not like the heightened suspense and its dark violence. I thought the combination worked very well. show less

This stand-alone novel is a tale of suspense set in England in the period between the two World Wars. The country is under stress due to economic strain and a paralyzing labor strike is in the offing. Touchstone has only about seven major characters to track; the focus is on following the psychological mindset of each during negotiations between the various factions. There is a primary character that serves as a central focal point in the action for the bulk of the book – Harris Stuyvesant, a well-drawn American agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). King uses a slow pacing to build characters, but the final third of the book moves rapidly and carries the reader along. The final resolution is neither weak nor entirely happy.

It took me a little while to get into this, but once I did I couldn't stop thinking about it when I wasn't reading it.

Basically, it's England in 1926, and there's this huge strike brewing, and everyone is trying to recover from the war, and this American agent comes over to try to track down a union-related bomber, and he meets a guy who has some unusual abilities, and a sinister government official, and a pretty girl, and a beautiful woman from an aristocratic family, and there's a house party (who doesn't love a good house party?)

I loved the characters in this book. Harris Stuyvesant reminded me a bit of a rougher Archie Goodwin (one of my favorite literary characters of all time), if he'd shown up in Lord Peter Wimsey's world.
The show more only disappointing bit was that I kind of wanted Harris and Bennett to get together. I thought it MIGHT happen, being Laurie King, but it didn't. Oh well. show less

I'm not sure how I overlooked this novel when it came out, but I very much enjoyed Harris and Bennett as characters. Both are deeply flawed, but also possessed of innate integrity. Harris is also a joy because he has a gift for putting things together and seeing the bigger picture. The political background was very interesting.

She is one of my favorite authors and I was both disappointed and eager to see new characters. This is a very detailed and accurate-feeling historical piece, post World War I. The characters and setting are stunning, but the pacing dragged for me. The book has a strong and beautiful pathos.

Touchstone is perhaps King’s most ambitious novel yet. It takes place between the World Wars, which is not a new period for King—most of the Russell books take place in the 1920s—but the characters are new, and the plot felt more complex than is typical of her books.

King has a wonderful ability to craft mysteries that keep you on the edge of your seat but that also make you think about more substantial questions. I really enjoyed how in this book she could make me feel sympathy for people who are doing despicable acts without ever seeming to condone their actions.

As for the mystery itself, well, I figured out the key element early on, but that did not at all ruin the story for me. With King, figuring out whodunit is beside the show more point. How, why, when, and what then are the real questions. And when it comes to those questions, Touchstone offered lots of surprises along the way.

See my complete review at my blog. show less