An Instance of the Fingerpost (2003)

By Iain Pears
Iain Pears does Umberto Eco – I am being tough on poor old Iain Pears, aren’t I?? Set in England after the restoration of King Charles, this book is essentially a murder mystery – who murdered Dr Grove? – and consists of four sections, each told by a different character, relating certain events from their own viewpoint.

This is an interesting idea, as the four people have very different ideas about who killed Dr Grove and why, and often works very well. However, as always happens to me in these kinds of books, I lost track of who all the different doctors and monks and Earls and Lords were and tended to get bogged down in all the philosophical and religious discussion. (I skipped quite large sections of Eco’s The Name of the Rose; all the bits that seemed more like advanced lectures in religious history). The first section, told by the Venetian Marco da Cola, was especially tough going. However, it did get better as it went along, and the following three sections were easier to get into. These sections were written in a less formal style and dealt less with esoteric topics and more with revenge and betrayal and all those other topics close to all our hearts. The last two sections I did enjoy quite a lot.

Overall, though, the book did have a slight feeling of “effort” to it – Iain Pears had obviously done a lot of research for the book and was determined to include everything he possibly could. And what’s with the title? I’m still not sure what the “fingerpost” is exactly, it did come up near the end but by that stage I wasn’t terribly interested as it didn’t seem to have much bearing on the plot. Could I use it in a sentence? Nope.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10