The luminaries: a novel

Winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize and Governor General's Award for Fiction, and set during the heady days of New Zealand's Gold Rush, The Luminaries is a magnificent novel of love, lust, murder, and greed, in which three unsolved crimes link the fates and fortunes of twelve men. Dickens meets Deadwood in this internationally celebrated phenomenon. In January 1866, young Walter Moody lands in a gold-mining frontier town on the west coast of New Zealand to make his fortune and forever leave behind a family scandal. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men who have met in secret to investigate what links three crimes that occurred on a single day: the town's wealthiest man has vanished. An enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. A prostitute has supposedly tried to end her life. But nothing is quite as it seems. As the men share their stories, what emerges is an intricate network of alliances and betrayals, secrets and lies, that is as exquisitely patterned as the night sky. Part mystery, part fantastical love story, and intricately structured around the zodiac and the golden mean (each chapter is half the length of the preceding one), The Luminaries weaves together the changing fates and fortunes of an entire community, one where everyone has something to hide. Rich with character and event, it is a gripping page-turner and a unique, atmospheric world in which readers will gladly lose themselves. It confirms Eleanor Catton's reputation as one of the most exciting and innovative novelists writing today. (Quelle: buchhandel.de).

Die literarische Sensation des Jahres von der jüngsten Booker-Preisträgerin aller Zeiten! In einer Hafenstadt an der wilden Westküste Neuseelands gibt es ein Geheimnis. Und zwei Liebende, die einander umkreisen wie Sonne und Mond. Als der Schotte Walter Moody im Jahr 1866 nach schwerer Überfahrt nachts in der Hafenstadt Hokitika anlandet, trifft er im Rauchzimmer des örtlichen Hotels auf eine Versammlung von zwölf Männern, die eine Serie ungelöster Verbrechen verhandeln. Und schon bald wird Moody hineingezogen in die rätselhaften Verstrickungen der kleinen Goldgräbergemeinde, in das schicksalhafte Netz, das so mysteriös ist wie der Nachthimmel selbst. (Quelle: Buchhandel.de).