Stone’s Fall

In London in 1909, the immensely wealthy industrialist and financier John Stone falls to his death from a window. His widow commissions a young journalist to investigate an unusual provision in Stone’s will, beginning an inquiry into a fortune built through banking, armaments and political influence. The search moves backward through three accounts—from Edwardian London to Paris in 1890 and Venice in 1867—each revealing an earlier stage in Stone’s rise and a different understanding of his marriage and death.

The novel connects its private mystery to the transformation of European capitalism. International loans, industrial consolidation, secret intelligence and competition over modern weapons allow financiers to influence governments while remaining partly hidden from public scrutiny. By reversing the chronology, Pears turns the explanation of Stone’s death into an investigation of how money, affection and ambition altered several lives across four decades.