Bloodstone Papers: A Novel

By Glen Duncan

Switching seamlessly between the chaos and bloodshed of 1940s India and the multicultural mélange of twenty-first-century Britain, Glen Duncan's sublime new novel finds love in both.

Ross Monroe is a boxing railwayman with a weakness for get-rich-quick schemes. Kate Lyle is a headstrong young woman desperate to escape a sexually predatory household. Both are Anglo-Indians, members of a race that helped turn the wheels of Empire for years. But Empire days are numbered, and as India sheds its colonial skin, the young lovers must face their own tryst with destiny.

In twenty-first-century England, Owen Monroe is writing this story of his parents' lives in an effort to avoid the problems in his own: lost love, relentless libido, dreams of death, and a world full of headlines he can't understand and doesn't want to. But keeping past and present apart isn't as easy as it seems, and before long Owen is deep in the one story he never wanted to tell....

Epic in its scope yet never losing sight of the telling, gorgeous detail, The Bloodstone Papers is an extraordinarily rich and beautiful read that manages to ask the big questions without fuss and to accept that the big answers aren't always what we want to hear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Oct 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9780061876127

Glen Duncan

Glen Duncan is the critically acclaimed author of six previous novels, including Death of an Ordinary Man; I, Lucifer; and, most recently, The Bloodstone Papers. He lives in London.

Reviews for Bloodstone Papers

[ahs7wolfy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another different than what's come before novel from my current favourite author. This time around he draws from his own family history and takes a look at the Anglo-Indians when the Raj was crumbling in 1940's India while also examining what it means for that minority in the present day. Owen Monroe (the narrator) is a teacher, bartender & occasional porn novelist using a pseudonym of Millicent Nash. He wants to write The Book telling the life-story of his parents (Ross & Kate) going back to those troubled times and what it was like for them then. The story is split with alternating chapters detailing Owen's current life and then telling his parents' story. Owen is also carrying on an investigation for his father trying to find a man named Skinner who is a recurring character in Ross' history usually to the detriment of his current fortunes.While I said it was different to his other work, there are a few of Glen Duncan's usual themes running throughout the dual narrative. He looks at death, sex, fate, lost love and relationships but never lets any overpower the story that he's telling. It is an intelligent, sad, funny, insightful story that examines what it means to belong to a minority people while never beating you over the head with it or sending you on a guilt-trip. While I think this is somewhat toned down from most of his other books there are still some graphic depictions of sex and sexuality, quite a lot of profanity and some scenes of violence. So those put off by such things should probably be forewarned before picking up anything by this author.