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(More customer reviews)After HARVARD YARD, William Martin got up in the morning, got to work, solved the problems that writing a book present and thereby delivers to us his latest work, THE LOST CONSTITUTION. We fans are lucky that Martin himself subscribes to this Yankee work ethic that he extols throughout this book.
I'm always glad when a new William Martin novel is released. I know it will be exciting, a page turner. I know it will be informative. And I know it will be a history lesson, too.
In this new adventure, Martin sets our old friends, antiquarian book dealer Peter Fallon and his sassy girlfriend Evangeline, on the trail of an annotated copy of the Constitution. The stakes are higher in this quest than in his past tales. As important and valuable as the Paul Revere Tea Set from BACK BAY and Shakespeare's missing manuscript from HARVARD YARD might be, they don't have the political or social ramifications of this purloined copy of the Bill of Rights. What were the true intentions of the delegates? How much compromise was there before ratification? This copy smuggled out of Philadelphia might shed light on these issues and others.
Various competing factions within the country - Lefties, Righties, gun nuts, religious zealots - want this document, with margin remarks by Massachusetts delegate Rufus King, because it might bolster their cause or philosophy, which would translate into more power and more credibility. Power and credibility that are worth killing for, as Fallon and Evangeline discover as they track the missing document's movement through time.
This is a new millenium William Martin. His vision is as sharp as the hawks he has lazily soaring above the perimiters of the New England farmlands. There's terrorism in these pages. There's murder and assassination. And a final clash of past and present at Fenway Park during the World Series. There's even a Bingo confrontation! And, of course, there's the history. In this case, the rich tapestry of New England's past, beginning with Shay's Rebellion, as seen through the eyes of Martin's Pike family. The Pikes take us along with them as the document wends its way through New England through the generations. At every step of the way, Martin explores fascinating aspects of New England's past. A past that Martin obviously reveres, which is evident in all of his books. I expect that the most knowledgeable students of New England history will learn a few things from this book...
Somehow, with all of the vying for power and the attempts of opposite sides of issues to secure this document for their own ends, we understand that, ultimately, this Constitution of the United States, with its unique Bill of Rights for us citizens, brings us closer together much more than it divides us. It resonates at every stage of our development as a country. It is vital. It is alive. It will survive bad presidents and worse calamaties than that. It is our great strength. And it's William Martin's strength that he is able to make us see and understand this. THE LOST CONSTITUTION, a quarter century after BACK BAY, is a sterling start to the next William Martin quarter century.
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