History tells us that Charles Darwin embarked on a five-year factfinding voyage in 1831, during which he was thought to formulate his now-famous theory of evolution, yet he didn’t publish it until 1859. What to make of this unusual gap? Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Darnton fictionalizes an answer in his new novel, THE DARWIN CONSPIRACY.
Contemplating this mystery in the present day is on-again/off-again collegian Hugh, who’s suffering from ORDINARY PEOPLE syndrome (which is to say overwhelming guilt over a drowned brother) and spends his wayward days researching Darwin, trying to come up with an angle that countless others haven’t yet exhausted. When he happens upon the secret diary of Darwin’s daughter Lizzie – an artifact no one else appears to have found before – he hits the jackpot, even if it only raises more questions than answers.
Lizzie’s journal entries provide a second narrative; providing yet another is the 19th-century tale of Darwin’s exploits aboard the Beagle. Filled with sharks, volcanoes and a massacre by a native tribe, this provides the novel with its most thriller-esque qualities. Eventually Hugh and his new girlfriend – a fellow Darwin scholar – thread the pieces together and arrive at more than one shocking discovery.
Although the ending comes too quickly, Darnton has fashioned a brainy, absorbing why-he-dunit, more entertaining than educational. As alluring as the passages of the Darwin family are, it’s Hugh’s story that proves most seductive. I don’t know what it is about these mystery-thrillers set in the world of academia – THE GEOGRAPHER’S LIBRARY and THE RULE OF FOUR being recent examples – but I find them fascinating. True, my college experience was far from privileged as these Ivy Leaguer protagonists, but the themes of uncertainty are universal. THE DARWIN CONSPIRACY is another one, evoking nostalgia for those anxiety-racked years while crafting one hell of a historical mystery.
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Sounds good. I’ll have to pick this one up.
Have you read “The Dante Club?”
I have THE DANTE CLUB on my shelf, but it remains unread. I put it off because at the time, I had been reading a lot of those kind of thrillers and needed a break. Then I kinda forgot it was there. I need to get to it. You read it? What you think?
Yeah, I thought THE DANTE CLUB was terrific. I read it during a little period piece binge that included Caleb Carr’s ALIENST double-header.
I was pleasantly surprised by THE DANTE CLUB because I’d had to really lumber through Carr’s books. I liked his ideas but just assumed period pieces should be hard to read. Pearl proved they don’t have to be.
I bought THE ALIENIST last summer because I had read so much about it over the years, but haven’t actually read it. Yet.
The only Carr I’ve read – or tried to, I should say – was THE ITALIAN SECRETARY, his new Sherlock Holmes book. It was a chore, even though it’s fairly thin, and I gave up.
I haven’t tried Carr’s new one because his previous fiction book, KILLING TIME, was laughable in my opinion (actually I didn’t find it funny I’d wasted twenty bucks on it).
It’s a little strange because KILLING TIME was also a thin volume and it was much more of a chore to read than either THE ALIENST or THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS. And the premise sounded great.
I hate to dog Carr because I did enjoy his first two books, but I do wish he had the writing talents of someone like Kevin Baker (of DREAMLAND).