The TV Book Club - Stone's Fall

Episode five of the current series of Channel 4's The TV Book Club focused on Iain Pears' novel Stone's Fall, published by Jonathan Cape in 2009.

Iain Pears, author of a dozen books, has also worked as a journalist and art historian. He is the author of the series of detective novels featuring the adventures of art historian Jonathan Argyll.

Stone's Fall begins as a detective story in the London of 1909, when a journalist, Matthew Braddock, is paid to investigate the bequest to a child by John Stone, whose death from a fall in St James's Square, London opens the narrative. The second part of the novel moves back in time to Paris in 1890, and the third part to Venice in 1867. With successive shifts in time, each with a different narrator, more of the mystery generated by Stone's death is explained.

The book's narrative thrust and the complexity of the plotting found favour with the TV Book Club's commentators, as did the deliniation of the characters. Reviews in the press have also been generally very positive. If you have read Stone's Fall or any other of Iain Pears' books, why not post a comment below?

Just a closing thought. How would you compare the crime fiction of Iain Pears - an art historian - with the detective fiction of Fred Vargas, the French historian and archaeologist?

Episode five of the TV Book Club can, at the time of writing, be watched on Channel 4's website.