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Paul Tomm, a recent graduate of Wickenden University in Rhode Island, is working as a reporter for the weekly newspaper in the small town of Lincoln , Connecticut. He covers just about anything that happens in town, but nothing much, beyond school sports, local meetings, and church services take place. One day, Jaan Puhapaev, a history professor at Paul's alma mater, is found dead. Paul goes to the house. The police are there and let him in because they think that his death is from natural causes. The house is messy, so it is difficult to see if anything is missing but Paul sees a glass-fronted cabinet with 15 empty display stands, which makes him start to wonder. Slowly, Fasman starts to tell the story of the missing objets. In the 12th century, in Sicily, there lived Al-Idrisi, the royal geographer and herbalist, who is sent out to draw a map of the world. While he is on his journey, a thief breaks into the house and steals 14 items (with the sack in which they are put, that makes 15) However, while he is escaping from Sicily, the ship master takes the sack, allowing the thief to keep a single object from it. Back in the present, the county coroner, a friend of ex-foreign correspondent, now newspaper publisher, Art Rolen, calls him and tells him that there is something strange about the body, and he will meet with Art the next day to talk to him. But 'The Panda' as Art calls the Sri Lankan coroner, is hit by a car and killed that night. Something about the book kept me reading to the end. I don't know what it is. Wickenden is a thinly-disguised Providence, Rhode Island and I suppose that the university is probably a thinly disguised Brown, where the author went to school. The stories about the 14 items from the sack are sort of interesting, but irrelevant, as each item alone is worthless. It is only all together that they make some statement. It's a decent first novel, but perhaps a bit too literary in form for me.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, February 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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