Back Bay

A history graduate student unearths a clue to a long-buried treasure and is sucked into a race to find it, along with a disintegrating Boston Brahmin family, a ruthless nouveau riche businessman with a personal vendetta, and an alcoholic journalist. The setting of the book jumps around from the American Revolutionary War to the present (1970s), spinning a tale of a Paul Revere tea set made from confiscated Royalist gold and silver given to George Washington, stolen from the White House, and wreaking tragedy on the family that sees its salvation in it.

I wasn't feeling the romance between Peter and Evangeline, but the book was written in the 70s. I guess we're supposed to believe Peter loves her just because she's beautiful. And she show more drives a Porsche.

All in all, it's a good historical page-turner. show less

I have enjoyed the later books in the Peter Fallon series, but have only just found book 1. The story was fast paced and, despite its length, kept me engaged throughout. Reading the series in backwards order, I was surprised at Peter's beginnings and crisis of confidence. Beyond that, it was all I could have hoped. Martin does a great job with historic detective-work genre, and makes the American past - its people and its places and its events - completely accessible to the reader.

I read in one of the reviews that you couldn't really appreciate this book unless you were familiar with the locations listed in it. I have to agree with that. Living around Boston, I know where Back Bay, South Boston, Roxbury, Bunker Hill and all these others places are, and that makes the story so much more enjoyable.

I was actually seating in a bus at Sullivan Square reading about the battle of Bunker Hill - I almost could see the monument from where I was.

I really enjoyed the plot line about the Revere Tea Set. I was not so familiar with Revere's work and that got me wanting to go to the Museum of Fine Art.

The book is quite long, however, and some of the details of the story could have been cut. Otherwise, I strongly recommend it.

1979. This was well-plotted and suspenseful with but journeyman prose. Adequate. Cool Boston stuff though. Everybody was trying to kill everyone else all through the whole thing. It's kind of crazy.

I am really loving this book! I am already half through it & just started it tonight!! It's about a prominent New England family who holds the secret to a missing Paul Revere treasure. I was surprised to find out this book was published in 1979..long before all the other books of a similar genre. It's hard to put down! Can't wait to read the rest of the series!Read this book in 2 days & loved it! Can't wait to read the next in the series, Harvard Yard. I had a hard time putting this one down!

I loved the historical part of this novel, but the modern parts had so much bad language that I finally gave up trying to read it. That's really sad because I love books with a Boston setting. However, I'm not sure that I want to try to read other titles by this author when he finds it necessary to overuse bad language.

This is one of those books where if you are familiar with the geographic setting, it's fun to read for all of the local references, but I didn't find the story to be all that entertaining.