An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears

The accounts are written in the form of memoirs by each narrator many years after the events they describe, after Thomas Ken gained his Bishopric but before the death of Henry Bennet. The story of Sarah Blundy incorporates that of Anne Greene, while Jack Prestcott is involved in events based on the life of Richard Willis (of the Sealed Knot). Furthermore, the characters that are fictional are nonetheless drawn from real events. The plot is at first centred on the death of Robert Grove but later takes in the conspiracies of John Mordaunt and William Compton (of Compton Wynyates), and the politics of Henry Bennet and Lord Clarendon. Other characters include the philosopher John Locke, the scientists Robert Boyle and Richard Lower, spymaster John Thurloe, inventor Samuel Morland and the Anglican cleric Thomas Ken, who was later Bishop of Bath and Wells. Two of the narrators are the mathematician John Wallis and the historian Anthony Wood. Most of the characters are historical figures. The setting of the novel is 1663, just after the restoration of the monarchy following the English Civil War, when the authority of King Charles II is not yet settled, and conspiracies abound.

An Instance of the Fingerpost is a 1997 historical mystery novel by Iain Pears.Ī murder in 17th-century Oxford is related from the contradictory points of view of four of the characters, all of them unreliable narrators.

An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears