Review by DP

Laurie R. King is best known for her two long-running mystery series, one set in the England in the Roaring Twenties and starring Mary Russell as Sherlock Holmes’ feminist wife and the other set in modern-day San Francisco and focusing on lesbian detective Kay Martinelli. In addition, King writes the occasional stand-alone novel—most recently, Touchstone. Common to all of King’s writing are vividly written and painstakingly researched portraits of place and time. While her series focus on more conventional mystery plots, the majority of King’s standalone novels are psychological meditations on obsession, integrity and the cost of the human search for truth.

In Touchstone, King returns to England in the 1920’s, this time in the midst of the economic and political disruption that preceded the General Strike of 1926. Harris Stuyvesant, an American federal agent, has traveled to England on the tail of an anarchist bomber responsible for crippling his brother and killing his fiancée. In order to gain access to his potential bomber, Stuyvesant is led to Bennett Grey, also called Touchstone. After being nearly killed by a shell in World War II, Grey has developed an intense sensitivity to the cues and details of his environment, making him a human lie detector. Grey’s former lover, Lady Laura Hurleigh, is currently involved with Stuyvesant’s suspected bomber, and Stuyvesant uses Grey to infiltrate the high-class anarchist’s social circle. Unfortunately, a sinister operative named Aldous Carstairs is trying to coerce Grey into his service, while simultaneously plotting a Machiavellian overthrow of the British government.

If the plot seems complex, it is; King has situated the story in the midst of a turbulent time in British politics, and adding the supernatural element of a character who can read truth with a touch could make for a too-crowded story. King’s masterful evocation of detail and skilled prose, however, make both the potential anarchist revolution and the human lie detector go down smoothly, allowing the majority of the novel to focus on King’s major themes: the seductive power of a terrorist ideology and the difference between conviction and goodness. In Touchstone, many characters are convinced of the truth of their beliefs, but as Stuyvesant discovers, this only makes them more dangerous. The explosive denouement begs the question of whether a radical can be right and demands an immediate second reading to watch King lay the groundwork for her final twist.

If there is any weakness in this story, it lies in King’s intense focus on the feelings, thoughts and reactions of her characters, which results in a somewhat weakened plot. Touchstone is less a mystery than a character study of fanaticism, in which the great question is not who the bomber is, but what the drive to bomb means. The main characters’ personal involvements with one another and with various ideologies take center stage, and even the various bomb threats later in the novel are presented mainly as an opportunity to allow Stuyvesant to realize where his loyalties (and his heart) truly lie. Similarly, the character of Grey is more metaphorical than practical; much is made of the fact that his truth-sensing ability is an affliction rather than a gift, and his truth-sensing capacity is used mainly to illuminate personal secrets rather than political ones. As a novel of ideas, Touchstone is excellent, but those expecting big action, supernatural twists or neatly tied-off loose ends will be disappointed.

In the end, I didn’t remember the characters’ names, nor could I recall exactly what had happened when. What stayed with me were King’s insights into the minds of terrorists, her empathetic evocation of how an intelligent person can come to advocate the violent overthrow of their society and the creation of an idealized new order. King is excellent at getting in under the reader’s guard. In Touchstone, we experience the seductive pull of anarchy while simultaneously recoiling from its ultimate consequences. 3.5/5 stars.