The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession Review
--Spoilers--
Summary
The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession by Charlie Lovett is broken up into three time periods:
- The Distant Past (1592-1879)
- The Recent Past (1983-1994)
- The Present (1995)
The story begins with Peter Byerly in 1995. He is a young antiquarian bookseller who is in mourning over his wife's death. It has been nine months since Amanda's passing when he finally finds the interest to enter a bookshop and browse around. He has always been a shy and anxious type of person, so breathing in the books and holding them brings him a sense of calm. One book draws his attention because of the exquisite binding, which reminds him of his university days when he was learning the art of book binding. But inside this book is the spitting image of his dead wife, only it is a century old. The watercolor painting by a mysterious painter named "B.B." starts the fire burning within Peter, and he hunts down the painting's origin to find out who the woman is.
Peter meets Liz Sutcliffe, who works for a journal, and she helps him find B.B. She is assisting a Cornish scholar in his writing a book on the mysterious painter, and she only promises to tell Peter more about the scholar and B.B. once she receives the finished manuscript.
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| Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/william-shakespeare-poet-writer-62936/ |
The sections that recount the distant past show readers how Robert Greene's Pandosto in 1592 ends up in the hands of Peter Byerly in 1995. The owners of the book mark their names down in the opening page, so we see the book move from Greene's hands to the bookseller Bartholomew Harbottle who lends it to William Shakespeare, so he can gain inspiration for a new play. The Pandosto becomes highly valuable once Shakespeare makes his notes in the book and returns it to Harbottle.
Centuries later in the late 1800s, the Pandosto is in the hands of another bookseller named Benjamin Mayhew. He sells it to Philip Gardner, who owns an estate in Kingham, the town where Peter later lives. Gardner has a centuries-old family rivalry with his neighbor, Reginald Alderman. Alderman blackmails Gardner because he finds out that Gardner has a mistress and would not want his wife to find out. Gardner comes up with a scheme to forge the many valuable documents Alderman wants as payment for his silence. With Mayhew's help, Gardner creates a forgery of the Pandosto, but in its making, Mayhew informs him that the original Pandosto has been destroyed.
A letter from Isabel's companion arrives at Gardner's estate and Gardner's wife learns of his affair. She leaves Garner, taking her fortune with her. Later, we learns the contents of the letter, which were concerning Isabel's death. Philip Gardner is a broken man, having lost his love. He sends the forged documents and fake Pandosto to Alderman, with a note informing him that they are worthless, before hiding the originals away and committing suicide.
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| Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/library-books-literature-reading-863148/ |
The Recent Past
Readers are shown how Peter meets Amanda. He sees her for the first time in his university's library. Since he works in the library, he finds many opportunities to watch her as she studies and works on her research papers. Peter takes note of the books she reads and one day, he finds a letter from her, inviting him to meet with her in the school's Student Centre.
Their love blooms and Peter discovers that Amanda is actually a member of the wealthy family who founded the school and contributed heavily to the library and its Special Collections. Although Peter's family is in the lower class and his parents were neglectful and often drunk, Peter has a strong connection to Amanda's parents, who immediately accept him.
Like any couple, Amanda and Peter dream of marrying and starting a family. Unfortunately, the idea of having biological children is taken away from them when Amanda suffers from a burst appendix for two days, thinking it was just menstrual cramps. Her ovaries become infected and she is made sterile.
Despite that, Peter proposes to Amanda and they marry. They travel on account of Peter's job and find a cottage in Kingham that they both fall in love with. During the extensive renovations, Amanda falls ill again. It is discovered that she has a brain tumor and she dies after surgery from a stroke.
Back to the Present
Nine months after Amanda's death, Peter hunts down B.B., but makes a detour in his investigation to review the book collection of John Alderman, descendant of Reginal Alderman. While hoping to find some interesting selections, John's sister, Julia, takes out a box of items that are marked as "Not to be sold" and Peter finds the Pandosto. He is given a week to evaluate it and make an offer.
Hoping it is the real deal, he forgets about the watercolor photo of the woman who looks like Amanda to investigate the provenance of this massive literary find. However, he finds that the more he looks into the Pandosto, the more he discovers that it's linked to B.B.
Peter meets with Liz and finds out that her Cornish scholar fears for his life. Peter agrees to visit him to see how he is and to show him the Pandosto since it relates to his research. However, when meeting the man, Graham Sykes, they get into an argument and Peter finds Sykes murdered the next morning.
Having been told by Sykes the previous evening that he had already sent Liz the finished manuscript, Peter realizes that she is in danger and goes back to London to warn her when she doesn't answer the phone. Having only met her twice, Peter finds himself feeling protective of Liz.
He runs into her on her street, telling her that Sykes is dead and together, they continue their investigation into the Pandosto and B.B., returning to Kingham. Peter is almost sure that the Pandosto is a forgery and his theory is that Julia Alderman and Thomas Gardner (Philip Gardner's descendant) are working together to first, fool him into buying the Pandosto and then frame Peter for murder when they found out he was getting too close to the truth. Liz confesses that Julia has an alibi for the time of the murder because she called Liz and made an appointment with her for the next day. While staying at a hotel, Liz finds out from some gossiping locals that Thomas also has an alibi, having shot himself in the foot, so he could not have murdered Sykes.
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| Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/halloween-cemetery-dark-night-4571838/ |
Peter and Liz travel through the long tunnel and enter the Alderman's estate. They find out that John Alderman killed Sykes and was in league with his sister, Julia. While threatening Peter and Liz with a pistol and telling them that they wouldn't see the light of day, he offers them a final drink. Peter is forced to make the drinks and spikes it with his anxiety pills. Peter distracts John by telling him that the original Pandosto was never destroyed by Benjamin Mayhew, and as John feels the effects of the drug, Liz knocks him unconscious. Peter trains the gun on Julia. Liz calls the police and both Aldermans are taken away.
Back at Peter's cottage, Liz reads a few letters of Gardner's that she kept from the police when they removed the documents. Peter and Liz learn that the watercolor photo was of Philip Gardner's mistress, Isabel, and that she was an ancestor of Amanda's and by marriage, Peter's, meaning he was the rightful owner of Gardner's original documents, including the original Pandosto. On a hunch, Peter retrieves the folding box the forgery had been in and finds the original book hidden within it.
The story ends with it being established four months later that Peter is the rightful heir of Isabel's son and of the original Pandosto. Peter is scheduled to give the book to the British Library in memorial of Amanda. We learn that he and Liz are dating and Peter is finally moving on from Amanda's death.
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| Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/coffee-pen-notebook-caffeine-cup-2306471/ |
My Thoughts
I chose to read this book because it said it was "A Novel of Obsession." This caused me to place an expectation on the story, which isn't a good thing because then, readers are disappointed, like I am. I imagined the story would be intense, like the character would only think about this one item. I thought it would be written with a level of emotion that equaled Lord Byron's work or Annie Rice's Violin. It didn't. I blame the inclusion of the three time periods because when reading one chapter, you are then thrown out of the book to be placed in another time period, so I couldn't feel immersed in the story.
Reading about Amanda's death in the first chapter encouraged me to keep reading because I wanted to know what had caused her untimely demise.
I enjoyed following the Pandosto's origin. That's something the average bibliophile can't do when they buy second-hand books.
I liked the crypt scene because it reminded me of classic mysteries, such as Nancy Drew. However, it was rather convenient that there was another way out AND that they find a letter that mentions that there's a passageway in the room they're in.
It was nice to see that Peter's character develops. When we meet his younger self, he is a loner with an anxiety disorder, but then his relationship with Amanda helps him get better around other people. She becomes his "natural drug." As he becomes more involved with Liz, he gains control of himself and at the end, he is the rock Liz can lean on when she experiences claustrophobia in the tunnel.
I was upset that, at the end of the novel when we find out that Isabel is part of Amanda's family, the narrator says that Peter remembered the family tree he had seen in the family documents at the university library. In the chapter where Peter reviews the papers, there is no mention of a family tree, thus, Lovett, like many mystery writers, has withheld information from the readers so they could not solve this part of the mystery. Maybe Lovett expected readers to assume that since the watercolor painting resembles Amanda so much, that that woman was Amanda's ancestor. I did not assume that and felt cheated. Lovett even refrained from mentioning Isabel's surname in the chapters she's in.
Another aspect of the book I didn't like was during the confrontation scene with John Alderman. The narrator never indicates how Peter suddenly knows the original Pandosto was never destroyed. It's just dropped into the dialogue. The rest of the book gave us more insight into Peter's thinking.
Overall, it is a decent book that any bibliophile would enjoy, but it's not a must-read, in my opinion. It makes for a good mystery, however, as soon as Peter said he thought Julia and Thomas were working together, I knew it was just a red herring and that it was actually John (and possibly Julia was acting as his accomplice). That was only half-way or three quarters of the way through the novel, so that's not bad. Knowing the culprit's identity at the beginning isn't usually pleasant for the reader, so this novel did a fair job on that front.
Check out my library for more reviews, or read some of my own writing, including The Goblin Tunnels Series.
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