Ghostwalk

By: Rebecca Stott

Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor

Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

A Cambridge historian, Elizabeth Vogelsang, is found drowned, clutching a glass prism in her hand. The book she was writing about Isaac Newton’s involvement with alchemy - the culmination of her lifelong obsession with the 17th century - remains unfinished. When her son, Cameron, asks his former lover, Lydia Brooke, to ghostwrite the missing final chapters of his mother’s book, Lydia agrees and moves into Elizabeth’s house - a studio in an orchard where the light moves restlessly across the walls.

Soon Lydia discovers that the shadow of violence that has fallen across present-day Cambridge, which escalates to a series of murders, may have its origins in the troubling evidence that Elizabeth’s research has unearthed. As Lydia becomes ensnared in a dangerous conspiracy that reawakens ghosts of the past, the 17th century slowly seeps into the 21st, with the city of Cambridge the bridge between them.

Filled with evocative descriptions of Cambridge, past and present, Ghostwalk centers around a real historical mystery that Rebecca Stott has uncovered involving Newton’s alchemy. In it, time and relationships are entangled - the present with the 17th century, and figures from the past with the love-torn 21st century woman who is trying to discover their secrets.

A stunningly original display of scholarship and imagination, and a gripping story of desire and obsession, Ghostwalk is a rare debut that will change the way most of us think about scientific innovation, the force of history, and time itself.

©2007 Rebecca Stott (P)2007 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

"British historian Stott makes a stunning debut with this hypnotic and intelligent thriller....Much more than a clever whodunit, this taut, atmospheric novel with its twisty interconnections between past and present will leave readers hoping Stott has many more stories in her future." (Publishers Weekly)

“Mesmerizing...Ghostwalk has an all-too-rare scholarly authority and imaginative sparkle...Rebecca Stott has accomplished something distinctively fresh with what she calls ‘a grubby little set of murders in Cambridge.’ Along the way, she manages to invoke both the non-causal entanglements of quantum physics and the paranoid conspiracies of Pynchon and DeLillo. Her home terrain, however is the river-riven landscape of the human heart.” (New York Times Book Review)

“Fiercely intelligent...You won’t have time to reflect on Stott’s metaphysics, at least not on the first read - you’ll be too eager to solve the murders. Ghostwalk works beautifully on both levels, leaving a lingering impression of a world richer, and more precarious, than we imagine.” (Janice P. Nimura, Los Angeles Times)

Boooorrrriing!!

Listening to this book, I find my mind wandering so much I'm surprised that I even know what's going on. The narration is slow and stilted. I'm about half way done and will be surprised if I even finish listening to this claptrap. I am hoping that there will be a tie in to Isaac Newton and animal rights radicals.