The Luminaries

By Eleanor Catton

Winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize and Governor General’s Award for Fiction, and set during the heady days of New Zealand’s Gold Rush, The Luminaries is a magnificent novel of love, lust, murder, and greed, in which three unsolved crimes link the fates and fortunes of twelve men. Dickens meets Deadwood in this internationally celebrated phenomenon.

In January 1866, young Walter Moody lands in a gold-mining frontier town on the west coast of New Zealand to make his fortune and forever leave behind a family scandal. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men who have met in secret to investigate what links three crimes that occurred on a single day: the town’s wealthiest man has vanished. An enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. A prostitute has supposedly tried to end her life. But nothing is quite as it seems. As the men share their stories, what emerges is an intricate network of alliances and betrayals, secrets and lies, that is as exquisitely patterned as the night sky.

Part mystery, part fantastical love story, and intricately structured around the zodiac and the golden mean (each chapter is half the length of the preceding one), The Luminaries weaves together the changing fates and fortunes of an entire community, one where everyone has something to hide. Rich with character and event, it is a gripping page-turner – and a unique, atmospheric world – in which readers will gladly lose themselves. It confirms Eleanor Catton’s reputation as one of the most exciting and innovative novelists writing today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9780771019135

Reviews for The Luminaries

[baochuan-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very interesting way to telling a story. Not sure about the ending, and it seems at the end, the chapters get shorter and shorter signing that the author was tire of the story as well? There are some flaw at the plot that I am not conveniced (Stain's disapperance and reappearance), but the twist and turn is well layed out and kept my attention.

[lovinglit · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When this book arrived in the post, I was so impressed by its presence. It is big, solid and beautiful to look at and hold. I was so excited to get started on it. Every time I was to pick it up to read after that first time, I was excited to get back to it. In my experience, it isn't often that a long book can hold my attention throughout. But this one did. I think one of the main ways it did, was by having the many characters repeat their experience of events that other characters had already been through. This way we not only get a more thorough grasp of events, but we get each persons side of the story and therefore to know each character well by the end. All good stuff. And then there is the story itself. It unfolds so intricately! Details emerge here and there, and our picture is formed slowly but assuredly of what has transpired. We are tantalised by facts and clues, but not taunted by what they allude to. I have heard descriptions of Catton's writing being remarkably restrained, I think so too. It is a collection of words beautifully put together.

[ridgewaygirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This novel is set during a gold rush in New Zealand, where men (and a few women) come from all over to make their fortunes. One of these men is Walter Moody, a young man who arrives in the port town of Hokitika under stressful circumstances; the ship he sailed on ran aground near the harbor and so he arrives without his luggage, settling into a mediocre hotel and then heading to the public sitting room to relax. A group of men have already gathered there, intending to discuss some pressing issues and they are left to loiter unconvincingly when Moody shows up. The pressing issues include the captain of the ship Moody sailed on, a prostitute with an addiction who attempted suicide and the disappearance of a young and successful miner. Catton takes her time here, not to stall the momentum of the novel, but to give it depth. Each man's point of view is accounted for, building a story that becomes more complex with every telling. The Luminaries is not so much sweeping as it is thorough. It has the feel of a Victorian novel, not just in the length and setting, but in its willingness to take its time. It was a great deal of fun to read.

[tommi180744 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A remarkable second novel full of colourful character & incident wrapped in a very lengthy and complex tale unfolding through White colonists, Maoris & superstitions, traditions & customs.In parts it's exceedingly hard to follow: And not being at all familiar with the Signs of the Zodiac I have had to take all the Literary elitists' word for the apparent linkage between the 12 main characters & a Star sign - does that mean I misread or misunderstood some elements of the book? Quite possibly, but I still enjoyed its vibrant story-telling.My one serious concern is the mini-explanation before each chapter: I was brought up to mistrust the author who felt the need to disclose in advance what the reader was about to explore for themselves - I still carry that mistrust in spite of Catton's marvellous writing skills & story.

[ldvoorberg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

(Actually New Zealand, not Australia).

Quite the intricate tale of intrigue. Almost a whodunit, but more of a "howdunit", since the guilty parties are apparent relatively early. The way the twelve men weave their story and then continue to connect its unfoldings gets complicated! I wouldn't stretch this book out or I'd lose the thread and connections. A limited cast of characters, but still rather large and because the story is unfolded in an almost backwards (but sometimes crisscrossed) chronological order, it is quite the feat. I can only imagine the charts and notes the author had in writing this book!

Anna, the gold-mining town whore is caught up in the death of a hermit and the disappearance of a rich man, though how the events are all connected and why is the mystery the book sets out to solve.

Well written and entertaining, though long.
I loved the irony of the little "synopsis" at the start of each chapter, and how they became longer and longer in the final chapters to the point where they contained more plot than the chapters themselves. Brilliant!

[clq_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's hard to overstate how technically impressive The Luminaries is. It's over 800 pages of a complicated, intentionally disjointed, ambitious story which is told in a consistent old-English style that adds more to the atmosphere of the whole thing than one would think. It all becomes even more impressive when one considers that the author was only 28 years old when she wrote this. By pretty much any standards it would be impossible not to consider The Luminaries an awesome (in the proper sense of the word) piece of work.Unfortunately I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I should have done.I don't think I'm going out on a limb in saying that this book is rather harsh on the reader. From page one the reader has to sit through many, many, many, pages of strangers speaking about things of little apparent consequence that happened to other strangers. Of course, it all becomes relevant at some point, but still. I normally appreciate being kept in the dark for the sake of a subsequent big reveal, but there is a limit to how many hours I can enjoy reading what is mostly background to a story that will take place some hundred pages later. For me that limit was reached. I'm not unreasonable though. Had I felt that the rest of the story justified the time it took to get there, I might be inclined to forgive it. I didn't feel like it did. That's not to say the story isn't great. It meshes together an extremely wide range of themes into a story that eventually becomes interesting, very original, and, towards the end, rather thrilling. It just doesn't become quite interesting or thrilling enough to justify what I felt was the long path I took to get there.Also, I haven't written anything about the content of the book. I'm always very careful to avoid spoilers, and in this case I'm honestly not sure what would constitute spoilers and what wouldn't. On the one hand I could give a three sentence summary of the basic premise. On the other hand I feel that said summary would pretty much cover the first third of the book.That is not to say I didn't like the book. Once I got to the meat of it, and it was revealed to me what was actually going on, I did manage to get into it. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if more was revealed a little sooner, or maybe that would ruin the point and the effect of the story entirely. I really don't know. I just feel that the book really didn't work for me. On the other hand, considering this is an 800+ page book that really didn't work for me, the fact that I still quite liked it must count for something.So I really am torn when it comes to this book. I think the only kind of person I would recommend this to is the kind of person who will probably already have read it. Want a mightily impressive work of art that will challenge you? Go for it. Want a book you can enjoy without pouring what feels like several 10K runs worth of physical effort into reading it? Choose something else.

[hardlyhardy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Eleanor Catton's massive 2013 novel "The Luminaries" manages to be both hard to hold for long and hard to put down. Set in New Zealand in 1865 and 1866, the novel blends a Victorian style of storytelling with a modern, nonlinear style of storytelling.The story itself involves mysterious deaths, stolen treasure, missing people and lives gone astray. Catton's novel has so many characters that there may be no true protagonist. Yet four characters most hold our attention. Anna Wetherall is an alluring young woman forced into both prostitution and opium addiction. Emery Staines is a young man even more innocent and gullible than Anna, whom he loves. Francis Carver, though he actually appears very little in the book, is nevertheless always in the immediate background, the cause, along with Lydia Wells Carver, of much of the harm that comes to others in the story.The narrative begins in the middle of the story, when several men in Hokitika, a gold-mining town, meet secretly to talk about what has been going on and what should be done about it. One of these men is Walter Moody, a newcomer to town who eventually represents both Wetherall and Staines when they, not the Carvers, are taken to court. These trials all but end the story, but then Catton takes us back to the beginning to show us what really happened, although even then leaving huge questions unanswered.Early chapters are long, detailed and proceed at a leisurely pace, yet gradually Catton speeds up the pace as chapters get shorter and shorter and tell us less and less. She gives her novel an astrological structure with 12 parts, one for each sign, and chapters with titles like "Jupiter in Capricorn" and "Mars in Aquarius." Yet, thankfully, the story itself has little to do with astrology, except perhaps in Catton's mind. The real message of the novel is not that we are influenced by the stars. Rather we are influenced, for good or ill, by the actions of other people, many other people. And, as in the novel, none of us is the main character.

[laurochka-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An intriguing and lengthy read. I enjoyed the intricacy of the plot and found the cast of characters engaging.
A mixture between murder mystery, ghost story and frontier adventure.

[sararichards-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Disappointing

[cybercarotte-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely loved this book!

I've read shorter books that couldn't hold my interest and feared I'd get bored of this one before I got to the end (there's over 800 pages after all) but this is truly delightful from beginning to end.

[sasham-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Read this book if you like over-blown, wordy and occasionaly confusing historical mystery novels. Or if you want to learn about 1860's New Zealand goldrush towns. From a historical perspective it was fascinating and gave an excellent sense of place and time.
The size of this book is off-putting, the style in which it is written I found to be hard work and the tying up of the loose connections in the last 30 odd pages after the courthouse scene just annoyed me. By that point I had pretty much worked it out for myself and really didn't want to know about the past - what i did want to know at that point is what the characters would do next. How would they move on?
I did like the way the mystery unfolded and each time you found the answer to one question another question (or two) would crop up - and to be perfectly honest it was the need to know how certain things happened that kept me going.
A few things were left unexplained - what Moody saw in the hold of the boat??? what was that all about?
How did (illiterate) Anna manage to read a document that she had never seen? And then perfectly forge Staine's signature when she had barely even met the man let alone seen his signature? Or was that supposed to prove they where somehow linked / astrologically the same person / as stated by Lydia when she drew up their natal charts??
Did the Astrological stuff mean anything or was it just a tool for the writer to include otherwise imposible connections / conjunctions?
I read this for book club but if it wasn't for bookclub I would not have finished it. It really bogs down in part 2 & 3. The second half of part 3 and part 4 give you answers and pick up the pace but it was around page 650 that I was eager to read and see what happened next.

[mldavis2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a huge work, 850 pages, complex and intricately woven while almost written in reverse chronological order. The book is long enough that it can't be easily read in a short time period, heavy enough in hardback to suggest a digital edition, and complicated enough to make notes advisable, although there is a glossary of characters at the front. It is well written and a monumental work by the author, set in the gold fields of New Zealand at the turn of the century.

[janeajones · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I finished Catton's [The Luminaries] this afternoon after two weeks wandering through New Zealand's 19th c. gold rush and getting to know a wild array of characters from gold miners to politicians, a pharmacist, a newspaper editor, a lawyer, a Maori guide, grifters, Chinese immigrants, and two young dreamers, an opium-eating whore and a romantic fortune-hunter. It's a delight of a book -- slowly opening layers of a convoluted tale and the mysteries of a murder and the fates of lovers.Laura Miller in reviewed the book:"There will no doubt be readers who will nestle voluptuously into its nineteenth-centuy voic and think no more of larger matters, as Catton takes them careening through the exploits of gold smugglers, con men, spiritualists, whoremongers, conspiracists, killers, and at least one holy fool. There are others who will treat like the fantastic puzzle it most certainly is. This is the rare novel that works beautifully on both levels, and that understands that each of these aspects is like a magnetic pole: The field between them is where all the power lies."I admit that I slipped over the astrological patterning of the plot, but the play and puzzles of this looong (over 800 pages) book are teasing and fascinating. It's funny and satiric and harsh and gentle. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey and highly recommend this 2013 Man Booker prize winner.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This 24 CD audiobook accompanied my husband and I as we drove about 10,000 kilometres from our home to the Maritime provinces and back. It was diverting for those long stretches of boring highway but not ideal as an audiobook because there were so many characters and so much intertwining of the story that it was hard to keep track. I also understand that the book started each chapter with an astrological chart which is something that cannot be conveyed in an audiobook. That being said I give high praise to the narrator, Mark Meadows, who did an excellent job of all the different accents and dialects. A good narrator can make a so-so audiobook much better.This novel is set in New Zealand during the gold rush of the 1860s, primarily in the town of Hokitika. A young Scottish lawyer, determined to make his fortune, arrives in town one stormy night to find twelve men in the common room of the hotel where he plans to live. At first the men in the room are suspicious of Walter Moody but, when they learn he arrived on the barque Godspeed which was captained by Francis Carver, they tell him about why they are gathered there. A hermit called Crosbie Wells died suspiciously some weeks ago and when his cabin was inventoried a fortune in gold was discovered. The same night Wells died a young prostitute, Anna Wetherell, was found near death on the road near his hut. That night was also the last time that a young man who had struck it rich in the goldfields, Emery Staines, was seen in the area. The twelve men have gathered to share their knowledge of the circumstances and determine what is to be done. They believe that Francis Carver, who was in Hokitika that night and was known to be looking for Crosbie Wells, might have had something to do with all these strange occurrences. After all, "a string of coincidences is no coincidence" as one character says.All of the details shared by the twelve men take up the first chapter of the book which is its longest part. The remaining 11 chapters decrease in length which is a deliberate choice by the author to liken it to a waning moon. Emery Staines and Anna Wetherell share the same birthday and were born in the same location in the same year. This makes them astrological twins and thus fated to be together. This reminded me very much of Romeo and Juliet and others have also called them star-crossed lovers. The language of this book is its redeeming factor I think. There are lovely descriptions of the location and vivid pictures of the characters, complete with clothing, hair, scars etc. Catton won both the Man Booker Prize and the Governor General's award for English literature in 2013 (due to the fact Catton was born in Canada). I'm sure it deserved the awards but this is not a book that will shine in my memory.

[glorybe1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found this book quite confusing! It does seem very well written, but the constantly jumping backwards and forwards in each persons story I found a bit annoying. It is as others comment on, very mathematical in the way it is set up with the signs of the zodiac etc (I am not sure if I missed something there!) And I was very disappointed with the ending, you felt you were sort of hurtling towards something and then all of a sudden, whoops you had got there and nothing was really happening! As I have said I didn't really get it, and I am not sure was it me? or the way the book was written? Pity as it was such a long and complicated read.

[jwood652 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Set in a New Zealand goldrush town in the 1860s, this historical novel is full of intrigue. It starts with a clandestine meeting of men from various walks of life discussing recent events. There is a disappearance, a possible suicide, missing shipments, gold sewn into dresses, fake identities, opium smoking and prostitution. It is a thick book so you need to commit to it, but the story is fairly compelling. I am not sure how the zodiac diagrams relate but they aren't essential to the story. In revealing the story the author used flashbacks at the end of the book which were great but somewhat confusing. Overall, I found it to be a great read.

[lindaspangler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

wonderfully written, but got long and some what tedious midway through. Hard to follow in the beginning, had to keep notes.Mystery set in gold rush in New Zealand

[devilish2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Entertaining whodunnit set in the New Zealand goldfields with all their cultural diversity. Who,

[sharon.flesher · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Had I read The Luminaries with no prior knowledge of its author or date of publication, I would have believed it to be a work of 19th century British literature. Yet extraordinarily gifted writer Eleanor Catton is a New Zealander in her mid-twenties. How astonishing!

Ms. Catton has crafted 830 pages of intrigue with a large cast of richly-drawn characters that will no doubt, when its announced television miniseries is produced, represent an employment opportunity for British actors not witnessed since the Harry Potter series concluded.

I was loathe to leave her world of the 1860s New Zealand gold rush, and even when I reluctantly set the story aside to attend to such mundane tasks as eating, I imagined the streets of my town had transformed to those of Hokitika, and I considered which dining establishment might receive my custom for the evening.

Ms. Catton takes care to introduce each character with a comprehensive description of appearance, personality, and motivations. Some are endearing, some are villainous. Some meet with the fates they deserve, some do not. Most early mysteries are explained, but there are a few blanks the reader will need to fill in with her own imagination.

I have only two quibbles with this hefty novel. First, the astrological structure was beyond my comprehension so I don't know if I missed some important meaning. Second, the dust jacket (of the American version) referred to it as a "ghost story", so I spent the entire novel wondering when the ghost would appear. I believe I know the "apparition" that elicited this description, but having finished the story, I wouldn't qualify it as a ghost, unless it is part of the meaning I fear I have lost by not being a student of astrology.

[evelynbernard · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In the beginning of Eleanor Catton's book, I was finding the writing style confusing and a little ponderous. Who are these people? Why are they here together? How do they relate to eachother? Do they all play a part in the same story? Still, the book won the Man Booker Prize of 2013 - there has to be a reason! So, I kept going.I am so happy I did. This story, set in the New Zealand Gold Rush of the 1860's introduces us to a cast of characters who are not always what they seem. Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? The author tells her story from the viewpoint of many of the characters, each in turn. Each of them has experienced the same events. Each of them has a different way of looking at it. A young, wealthy, missing man; an opium addicted young prostitute almost dead of an apparent suicide attempt; a fortune in missing gold; a dead hermit in a cabin; a fortune telling con artist and her cruel seafaring husband; a Chinese opium dealer with revenge on his mind; a naive banker... so many more and Catton has woven and interwoven them into a wonderfully rich and seamless story. Catton's chapters start out lengthy and shorten as you go along so that at the end you feel as though you are hurtling to a conclusion with barely time to catch your breath!I found out on the dust jacket that The Luminaries is Catton's second book - I am resolved to read the first one!

[piperup · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I tried. I really did. I made it halfway thru the book & decided I couldn't dedicate any more hours of my life to a story that I am so disinterested in reading.

[dogear360 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Never actually finished reading this book. A bit difficult to get into in the beginning but the middle was interesting and a bit intriguing. Then it went on and on and what it the point? So many books....

[nicole_a_davis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked the author's writing style--very detailed and descriptive, although it was hard to keep the characters straight and I didn't realize at first that the story was not being told in chronological order. (It didn't help that I was reading the book in fits and starts with other books in between. If I had been more dedicated it might have been more clear.) I also feel like I missed out on something because the astrological chapter titles and diagrams had no meaning for me.

[kara.shamy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Originally composed 10/13/13 on goodreads.comThe Luminaries is, I think, a historic literary achievement. If it doesn't win this year's Man Booker Prize, you'll be able to knock me over with a feather. Yeah, that's the most polite way to put it. I cannot wait to read this novel again. It's a pleasure to read, and it bears substantial scholarly scrutiny as a work of literary art.I've commended novelists for their ambition in some of my previous reviews. Eleanor Catton's ambition is revealed first by the somewhat abstract astrological structure she sets up for her work -- it's the kind of move a book meant merely to entertain does not dare. It reminds me somewhat of James Joyce's modeling his masterwork about June 16th in the life of Dedalus and Bloom, Ulysses, after Homer's Odyssey. While Catton's pretense does not match that of Joyce, her execution of her work places it squarely within the same tradition of masterful examples of the novel.Also, as a sidenote, I found that some of Catton's prose reminded me of Joyce's in the penultimate catechism-type episode in Ulysses. I did not do a close side-by-side comparison, but that was the impression that jumped to the front of my mind as I read. In its scope and achievement, this work also calls to mind George Eliot's Middlemarch.To speak more of The Luminaries on its own terms, as really I ought:--There's poetry in this prose; it's everywhere evocative.--The narrative voice is free and easy; Catton doesn't give the sense that she's trying too hard. To write such a complex and masterful work so confidently blows my mind. If I were to characterize her narrative style altogether in a few words I would choose: playful, with an affectionate disposition to reader and the narrative itself.--Like other great novels I've mentioned in this review, it unites macroscopic and microscopic views of its subject matter and does so in a circumscribed setting in terms of time and place. This focuses the range of detail and ultimately epic effect of the work.The Luminaries is resplendent; you won't want to miss it, dear readers. All you English majors, dust off your rigorous analytical skills, and all you lovers of literature, dust off that part of your heart that feels great books. Some classic literature is happenin' here!I hope this helps; thanks for reading my ideas. Please be advised I read an electronic galley by generous permission of the publisher Little, Brown and Company.

[annbury_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This isn't an easy novel to get into, but once the story has had time to take hold it blossoms as a really gripping story, beautifully written. The organizing principal - an astrological procession -- was a major distraction at first: I kept referring back to the list of characters to identify them by their astrological sign and relation to the planetary figures. Once I got used to it, the astrology faded into the background, as the novel came to the fore. It is described as a parody of a nineteenth century novel; if so it is a very gentle and admiring one. For me, it had much of the charm of the genre, with a distinctly moral view (there are good guys and bad guys), melodramatic situations, unanswered questions, an all seeing author, and a complex structure. I enjoyed reading it very much, but would note that I am a fan of the nineteenth century novel!

[dbsovereign · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Oddly enthralling tale of multiple robberies told on a disjointed timeline. Catton conducts us along a very intricate path and while I found myself somewhat confused by the plethora of characters, her intimate treatment of each person's place in the story allowed me to just relax and let the story unfold. It's work, it's a massive tome and it's complicated, but I found it fun.

[joyhclark · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I find myself having a difficult time deciding what to rate this one. As literary fiction, there is no denying that The Luminaries is pure gold (pun intended). It did just win the Booker today, in fact. I would not, however, say that I loved it. I like for books to draw me in, to get under my skin. In this tale, I often felt like I was just waiting for it to end. To be fair, my time this past month was limited, and the first few cumbersome chapters did give me an initial bad taste. As the tale moved on, however, I did enjoy it more, and was left with high respect and admiration for the author. I think I may have to go re-read a Sookie Stackhouse novel to cleanse my palate!

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I bought this book because I was traveling to New Zealand and wanted to read something set in that country. I actually picked two books for the trip, The Bone People and The Luminaries, both set in New Zealand and both Man Booker Prize winners. But I started The Bone People First - mostly because it was more current and to be honest, it was shorter. I finished it in New Zealand, was completely underwhelmed, and ended up leaving it in a hotel room - I couldn't convince anyone to even take it. But I hauled this 900 page book all the way through my vacation, without even starting it. When I could barely close my suitcase, I almost left it behind, but I'm really glad I didn't.What a fantastic story. A great combination of vivid and descriptive historic fiction, set during New Zealand's gold rush, with a slowly unfolding mystery, and a Dickens-like writing style. I will admit that this book takes awhile to absorb. There is a huge cast of characters and all of them are important to the overall plot of this book, but a handy list in the front of the book definitely came to good use many times. This is one of those works where everything fits together. That doesn't mean that at the end of the book you aren't left with a host of unsolved issues, but no detail seems unimportant. I actually went back and reread sections, searched discussion groups and looked for answers to some of the many questions I had. No spoilers here, but this would be a great book for a book club or buddy read because there are lots of subtle nuances that take a very careful and observant reader to dissect. For the patient reader this is a fun and well crafted story - well worth the 900 pages.

[klmesoftly · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

phone-typed notes: a deceptively long book; the first half is all an uphill exercise in reviewing the testimonies of all these different characters in an attempt to get the story straight, the latter half a lightning fast roller coaster resolution and a series of heartbreaking little vignettes to fill in the last gaps. Like wireframing out the factual structure of the story and then going back to fill in the color and emotional reality of it. really unique in that sense. definitely felt long, though I'm not sure it could have reasonably been any shorter! also liked that the Chinese and Maori characters were full people in their own right, not backgrounded.

[edwinrelf_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's a bit like a "Boy's Own" tale. Yet, it is written by a young lass. I enjoyed this tale. It is very well written and the structure rounds out nicely starting as it does a bit into the start of the story and then when we almost fully understand it the story has gone almost full circle and so we come back to almost at the beginning and get the lead in and, in a way that has that make sense.The thing that gets me though is the sexlessness of the men in the novel. Most of the characters are men and, strangeley - given the sexlessness - two fo the few women are whores. This is why I think of the story is a 'boys own' tale. It has the energy of pre pubescent boys - lads running around sorting out the world's problem like Biggles. Yet in this book the lads are fully mature men who somehow do not have sexual energy;no desire, no lust, no stiffies - not even - in a place without women - for each other. Wierd.