Rebecca Stott.s intricately plotted .Ghostwalk. begins in the orthodox fashion, with a corpse,
a clue and an armchair detective. But it also has a scholarly authority and imaginative sparkle
all too rare in upscale pulp . or, for that matter, any kind of writing. In this mesmerizing
first novel, Stott, a historian of science at Anglia Ruskin University in England, has drawn on
the traditional resource of historical fiction to fill tantalizing gaps in the archival record.
Like Matthew Pearl in .The Poe Shadow,. she attempts to shed new light on the mysterious
circumstances of a long-cold case. The suspicious deaths at the core of .Ghostwalk. occurred in
and around Trinity College, Cambridge, during the 17th century, when the plague was at its peak
and Isaac Newton was solving every scientific puzzle in sight. Newton, the red-robed Lucasian
professor of mathematics who discovered, among other things, the spectrum of light and the rules
of gravitation, is the pivotal figure around whom Stott.s double plot turns. The trap-door plot
of .Ghostwalk. involves an occult connection (.not a simple causal relationship,. Lydia muses,
.but something as delicate as a web, one of those fine white skeins you see around the tips of
grass stems in the spring when the dew is heavy.) between Elizabeth Vogelsang.s untimely demise
and the violent deaths of five men during the period when Newton was establishing his reputation
at Trinity. A kindred skein connects the alchemical cabal of the 17th century with outbreaks of
violence in post-9/11 Cambridge, .a city of keys and locked doors and private secret inner
courtyards.. Animal-rights activists lurk in the shadows, along with whatever is brewing in the
top-secret neuroscience labs where Cameron experiments on rats and sends secret text-messages
to his lover.
The Coral Thief By Rebecca Stott.
Spiegel & Grau. 286 pp. Sept 2009
In her first novel, "Ghostwalk," which was set in 17th-century Cambridge and involved Sir Isaac
Newton, Rebecca Stott established herself as a subtle writer who wears her scholarship lightly.
(A professor of English literature at the University of East Anglia, Stott also wrote the
biography "Darwin and the Barnacle.") Thanks to Stott's deftness and sly humor, "Ghostwalk" was
as sprightly as it was enlightening. The same can be said of her latest novel, "The Coral Thief,"
although here the plot accelerates at a faster rate (this is the 19th century), and the skulduggery
is more colorful (this is Paris). Indeed, all of Europe is in postwar flux with civilians and
soldiers alike on the move and on the make. In Paris the Allies are busy erasing all traces of
Napoleon's reign and carting off art treasures. Before Daniel reaches the city, however, he meets
his fate in the luscious shape of Lucienne Bernard, a fellow passenger who steals his fossils and
papers while he sleeps. "Desire was there from the beginning," he recalls. "But that's an easy
explanation for why the boy on the mail coach became the boy of the labyrinths and salons and
gambling houses, for how the anatomy student became a thief." With consummate skill and compassion,
Stott plunges Daniel the innocent into a serpentine plot that involves spies, philosophers,
revolutionaries and scientists. Treasure may be at the heart of Stott's mystery, but fossils and
corals are equally precious in this hybrid novel of action and ideas. Like Daniel, the reader
emerges from "The Coral Thief" having had an adventure and an education.
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