Just finished Geraldine Brooks's [u]People of the Book[/i]. It's a Pulitzer winner and I can see why.
The Book in the title is a 500-year-old haggadah, a Jewish illustrated manuscript. It is about to be put on display at a museum in Sarajevo. In preparation, it is to be inspected by Dr. Hannah Heath, an Australian book preservationist.
The novel traces the book's history -- its survival -- through the centuries, from the battles in Sarajevo, through the Nazis, then back further through the Inquisition, back to its creation in Seville in the late 1480s.
To call it a mystery would be a real stretch, and there's a subplot which, to my taste, should have been more, or perhaps less, but as it is, was more distraction than anything else
On the other hand, I started reading it Friday evening when I realized it was due at the library in a few days, and I haven't accomplished much of anything else since - always a good sign!
Just a note - I am partway through another book which I'm rationing. It's like ice cream - the writing is so good I want to read and do nothing else, but if I allow myself to do that, it will be gone too quickly. So far nothing much has happened, and I won't mind if nothing ever really does. I'll give you a report by the end of summer, if I can stretch the book out that far.
