Shear - Hardcover

Parks, Tim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802115527 ISBN 13: 9780802115522

Publisher: The Grove Press, 1994

Synopsis

Peter Nicholson, a geologist sent to a Mediterranean island, is pulled by the demands of his wife, his mistress, his employers, and unpredictable strangers when he stumbles into a web of blackmail, deception, and murder. 15,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Tim Parks teaches English at the University of Verona.

Reviews

Parks's versatility and supple prose is again manifested in his sixth novel, his second foray into the psychological suspense genre (though this work has neither the mesmerizing narrative voice nor the taut pacing of the praised Juggling with the Stars .) Here he uses geological metaphors to delineate the moral and emotional conflicts of his characters--"shear" being the way a quarried rock may expand and break after enormous stresses are released. Sent to Italy to investigate the death of a quarry employee, geologist Peter Nicholson receives bribes of cash and sex from Thea, daughter of the firm's wily boss, and is told to write a report exonerating the company. Marrried and a father, Nicholson feels his body's texture fatally vulnerable to his own "shear." Though he has brought along his mistress, 18-year-old Margaret, he nonetheless succumbs to Thea's seduction. His pregnant wife faxes him from England, threatening an abortion. The dead man's widow and child show up with a shard of blood-stained rock. In this area of the world, rock is ubiquitous-- in door and window sills, basins, stairs, cobblestones. Grimly introspective, Nicholson is haunted by the arid volcanic landscape and the "evil in the rock" which infects his foes and himself. Only "his pearl" Margaret (a play on the etymology of her name) remains free of taint, pearls being organic rather than mineral. Events turn sinister, while the tale takes on mythic resonance from the region's ancient gods--Theseus, Neptune, Pandora. Unfortunately, some of the technical analyses of rock components are turgid, but the tale's horrific denouement proves memorable.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

More sunlit suspense with a difference from the British author of Juggling the Stars (1993). Here, a geologist turns sleuth in Greece while coping with his midlife crisis. Quartz and feldspar, phenocrysts and microfractures--the novel bristles with the language of geology. Peter Nicholson is a 40- year-old London geologist visiting a Greek island quarry. His clients, Australian developers of office space in Sydney, are suing their Greek granite supplier and want ``something really damning'' in his report on quarry procedures and conditions. Expecting to mix pleasure with business, Peter has brought along Margaret, a 22- year-old student he loves enough to contemplate deserting his wife and children. He hopes the exotic locale will seal his future with Margaret, but the picture is complicated by his wife's fax announcing another pregnancy and by his impulsive bedding of Thea, the quarry director's beautiful daughter. Apparently Peter is testing his ``resistance to shear'' to see if he'll crack like the defective stone sent to Australia. (Parks rides the geological metaphor hard throughout.) His game of chicken is interrupted by Mrs. Owen, widow of a worker killed on the construction site, here to exact revenge and enlist Peter's help. Her disappearance, followed by the theft of his report, persuades him a sinister company cover-up is under way. Displaying an integrity not seen in his relationships, Peter confronts the director and does his own detective work in a tense finale. Underneath the noise Parks is asking a provocative question: Are our partners unique? His characters exemplify different answers. For Thea men are interchangeable, but Mrs. Owen mourns her husband as ``irreplaceable.'' Peter is confused, hence his crisis. Meanwhile, these characters are also players in a suspense game. It's a complicated scheme, and Parks handles the suspense better than the relationships, never quite getting a fix on Peter. Flawed but provocative work from an always interesting writer. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Parks' books are like crystals: multifaceted, hard-edged, and radiant. But this one, his seventh novel, is positively volcanic. It takes place over the course of a few feverish days in the life of a geologist named Peter Nicholson. Peter has been sent to a sunstruck island in the Mediterranean to inspect a quarry and report on the quality of the granite being produced for an office building in Australia. Intent on mixing pleasure with work, he brings along his young mistress, but their idyll is shattered by an angry widow determined to expose the truth about her stoneworker husband's suspicious death. Matters are further complicated by a fax from Peter's wife informing him that she's pregnant and by the ruthless seductiveness of his drop-dead gorgeous interpreter. As Parks carefully sets out each piece in this diabolical mosaic, he transmutes his extensive knowledge about rock into images of tremendous metaphorical and emotional richness. Shear, for instance, occurs when pressure is applied in at least two different and not diametrically opposite directions. Peter is, without a doubt, experiencing shear. The question, then, is, can he sustain it? As Parks' hero puzzles over and revels in his predicament, Parks considers the nature of uniqueness and the limits of love, the brutal beauty of the earth and all the consequences of desire and extreme action. Smolderingly brilliant. Donna Seaman

Expecting a relaxing business trip abroad with Margaret, the young mistress he adores, English geologist Peter Nicholson is unpleasantly surprised when his inspection of a quarry operation producing materials for the massive Marlborough Place Project requires more than cursory attention. At first, problems seem limited to routine details of quality control, but the shrill presence of half-mad Mrs. Owen, widow of an employee killed at the site, is troubling: she insists retribution is due for her husband's death, but the company dismisses questions concerning her accusations. Looking deeper, Peter becomes entangled in suspicions and in a sexual liaison with the plant director's manipulative daughter. His problems are compounded when a FAX arrives announcing his wife's pregnancy and Margaret promptly decrees that their affair must end. Peter feels his identity cracking; his dreams are troubled by visions of an evil presence in the local rock. The sudden disappearance of Mrs. Owen pushes Peter to act, leading to a cliff-hanging denouement as tragic as it is inevitable in this dark, brilliantly realized thriller. Good vacation reading; recommended for most public libraries.
Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Grove Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802115527
• ISBN 13: 9780802115522
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 211