The Pearl Thief

By: Elizabeth Wein

Narrated by: Maggie Service

Sixteen-year-old Julie Beaufort-Stuart is returning to her family's ancestral home in Perthshire for one last summer. It is not an idyllic return to childhood. Her grandfather's death has forced the sale of the house and estate and this will be a summer of goodbyes. Not least to the McEwen family – Highland travellers who have been part of the landscape for as long as anyone can remember – loved by the family, loathed by the authorities. Tensions are already high when a respected London archivist goes missing, presumed murdered. Suspicion quickly falls on the McEwens but Julie knows not one of them would do such a thing and is determined to prove everyone wrong. And then she notices the family's treasure trove of pearls is missing. This beautiful and evocative novel is the story of the irrepressible and unforgettable Julie, set in the year before the Second World War and the events of Code Name Verity. It is also a powerful portrayal of a community under pressure and one girl's determination for justice.©2017 Elizabeth Gatland (P)2017 Bolinda Publishing

Critic reviews

'... for all the story’s mystery and history – some of it quite ancient – two other elements take hold: the intriguing characters, brimming with life and the evocative language seeded with Scottish words and phrasings ...' (Booklist)

This is no Verity. Alas.

Even though "Code Name Verity" was listed as a YA book, I read it and fell in love with it. On the basis of that, I purchased this book. Same author, same character ; but a few years before. Had it not been for the excellent narration ; the descriptions of the pearls and pearl collecting; and the background regarding the travellers, I'd have given up long before the end. As it was, I hung on, hoping against hope to find any excitement in the story. This really is a coming of age story ...all tease and no action (and I am referring to the story here!)
A day after wading through the entire thing, I'd forgotten almost the entire plot. It did nothing for me (except pique my curiosity about travellers in Scotland, and freshwater pearls.)

Teenage girl caught in a mystery in 1930s Scotland

Julia Beaufort-Stuart is fifteen years old, and hasn't yet learned to fly. She's at her grandfather's estate for the summer, and was looking forward to a last, happy summer holiday there.

When she wakes up in the hospital, with little memory of the events that led to her injuries, she knows it's not going to be a normal summer.

Euan and Ellen McEwan, Scots Traveller teens who found her and got her to the hospital, start out as her best chance of finding out what happened. Gradually, they become her friends. Meanwhile, events get stranger and stranger. Hugh Houseman, a scholar employed to help catalog the Murray Hoard and other valuables attached to the estate, disappears on the same day Julia is hurt. A collection of pearls that was part of the Murray Hoard, and which Julia remembers playing with as a young child, is missing and no one else seems to care about it.

And then a body is found, dismembered, but believed to be Houseman's. When it's determined that Houseman was murdered, rather than dying accidentally or by suicide, the Travellers are the favorite suspects. The growing friendship between the McEwans and the Beaufort-Stuarts means Julia experiences first-hand some of the prejudice and discrimination against the Travellers.

Julia is flirting with Frank Dunbar, another scholar employed on the estate, after giving him the impression she's a few weeks from her eighteenth, not her sixteenth, birthday. Her youngest brother, Jamie, is interested in Ellen McEwan. Their French grandmother's companion, Solange, was involved with Houseman. When older brother Sandy arrives, to take on the work Houseman was doing, he gets very friendly with Mary Kinneard, the librarian. There seem to be people prowling the estate at night, who just don't seem to be the hired night watchmen.

Julia is coming of age while her family is going through a major transition, and while no awareness of it seems to have reached the Beaufort-Stuarts in Scotland yet, Europe is sliding toward war. She's not yet interested in flying--but she does know she doesn't want to stay home and live a quiet life, either as either a married woman or as a professional woman like Mary. I could not stop listening to this audiobook.

A minor point, but I noticed it: Unlike most of the books I've read or listened to lately, this is told entirely from Julia's point of view. We only know what she knows, and what we can infer from what she knows. She's a smart teenager, but she's a teenager, who has led a relatively sheltered life--more sheltered even that her brother Jamie, because it's the 1930s, and they're from an aristocratic family. Anyone who has read Code Name Verity knows she'll go on to experiences that are anything but sheltered, but this is a look at her life before that. Wein wants us to get to know her characters, and look at them from different parts of their experience.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

Great Narration, Good Story

First I want to say this is a really good story, but it wasn't quite Verity good, and that is the standard I hold Ms. Wein to in my head.

I absolutely loved the narrator, she brought these Scottish characters to life and made the book immensely more enjoyable than I think it would have been if I had read it myself.

I thoroughly enjoyed the history. Fiction A+.

Great Narrator. She was able to distinguish the characters very well. The author did a great work of fiction with true history intertwined. It is an author like her for whom I have developed an increasing interest in our world's magnificent history.

Fantastic!

Julie is a wonderful character. I read this after Code Name Verity and both books are engaging stories filled with strong female characters and vivid locations. The Pearl Thief is a bit of coming of age and a bit of mystery. The narration is incredibly well done and brings the listener right into the plot.