A return to the form that launched Iain Pears onto bestseller lists around the world: a vast historical mystery, marvelous in its ambition and ingenius in its complexity.<br><br>In his most dazzling novel since the groundbreaking <i>New York Times</i> bestseller <i>An Instance of the Fingerpost</i>,<i> </i>Iain Pears tells the story of John Stone, financier and arms dealer, a man so wealthy that in the years before World War One he was able to manipulate markets, industries, and indeed entire countries and continents. <br><br> A panoramic novel with a riveting mystery at its heart, <b>Stone&#8217;s Fall</b> is a quest to discover how and why John Stone dies, falling out of a window at his London home.<br><br>Chronologically, it moves backwards&#8211;from London in 1909 to Paris in 1890, and finally to Venice in 1867&#8211; and in the process the quest to uncover the truth plays out against the backdrop of the evolution of high-stakes international finance, Europe&#8217;s first great age of espionage, and the start of the twentieth century&#8217;s arms race.<br><br> Like <i>Fingerpost</i>, <b>Stone&#8217;s Fall </b>is an intricately plotted and richly satisfying puzzle&#8211;an erudite work of history and fiction that feels utterly true and oddly timely&#8211;and marks the triumphant return of one of the world&#8217;s great storytellers.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>