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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780553803556
ISBN number: 0553803557
Label: Bantam
Manufacturer: Bantam
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 560
Printing Date: December 26, 2007
Publishing house: Bantam
Release Date: December 26, 2007
Sale Popularity Level: 106600
Studio: Bantam
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Hailed for her rich and powerful works of psychological suspense as well as her New York Times bestselling mysteries, Laurie R. King now takes us to a remote cottage in Cornwall where a gripping tale of intrigue, terrorism, and explosive passions begins with a visit to a recluse upon whom the fate of an entire nation may rest—a man code-named . . .
It’s eight years after the Great War shattered Bennett Grey’s life, leaving him with an excruciating sensitivity to the potential of human violence, and making social contact all but impossible. Once studied by British intelligence for his unique abilities, Grey has withdrawn from a quickly changing world—until an American Bureau of Investigation agent comes to investigate for himself Grey’s potential as a weapon in a vicious new kind of warfare. Agent Harris Stuyvesant desperately needs Grey’s help entering a world where the rich and the radical exist side by side—a heady mix of the powerful and the celebrated, among whom lurks an enemy ready to strike a deadly blow at democracy on both sides of the Atlantic.
Here, among a titled family whose servants dress in whimsical costumes and whose daughter conducts an open affair with a man who wants to bring down the government, Stuyvesant finds himself dangerously seduced by one woman and—even more dangerously—falling in love with another. And as he sifts through secrets divulged and kept, he uncovers the target of a horrifying conspiracy, and wonders if he can trust his touchstone, Grey, to reveal the most dangerous player of all ….
Building to an astounding climax on an ancient English estate, Touchstone is both a harrowing thriller by a master of the genre and a thought-provoking exploration of the forces that drive history—and human destinies.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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I've been a fan of King for a while, and love the Mary Russel books. With no new Russel book, I checked out Touchstone, and loved it. It's not light -- espionage, anarchy, and the aftereffects of WWI don't make very good beach reading -- but this is one of the few books of the year that I finished reading and then immediately put into the hands of a friend to read. The characters stuck with me, and caused me to think more deeply than the usual historical mystery. Pick this up for a challenging, thought-provoking, gripping read.
Rated by buyers -
ok, maybe this is not great and eternal literature, but it was a fun and exhilarhating ride. i mean, at this point you have given it the same score as dianna raybourn, which is ridiculous. i am a long time king fan and i think this is one of her best.
Rated by buyers -
I am a big fan of Laurie King but this is a departure from her normal fare in that the main character is a male detective. A US federal agent is after a bomber and the clues lead him to a prominent political figure in London. This "novel of suspense" is about how he gets drawn into the lead up to a post-WWI general strike in England and a bomb threat that may include his suspect. A complex plot with six well-developed characters that is rich in the kind of details that make Ms. King's work so satisfying
Rated by buyers 
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I would not have thought it possible, but I have finally encountered a Laurie King novel that I could not finish. I got to about p. 100, plodding, plodding, plodding, and finally just took it back to the library. How can nothing happen in 100 pages? As a rule, I just salivate over the prospect of a new King book; now I will read reviews first.
Rated by buyers -
Other reviewers have mentioned this book's slow pace, but what I found (nearly) unforgivable was the structure of the very first two-thirds:
1. Persons A, B, and C talk about stuff
2. Person A goes off in a room and thinks about chapter 1
3. Person B goes off in a different room and thinks about chapter 1
4. Person C goes off in another room and thinks about chapter 1
Repeat many, many times.
Also I was not fond of the propensity for ending chapters at a dramatic point, only to have the subsequent page immediately deflate the tension. End of chapter x: Out of the blue, a man points a gun at Stuyvesant (main character). Beginning of chapter x + 1: Man with a gun asks Stuyvesant who he is, puts the gun away.
I was taken by the characters, however, and so I finished out the book, and basically I'm left with, enh. The identity of the bomber, by the time it comes, is not particularly satisfying. You don't think, "Oh of course, I should've known" because there weren't clues all along. It ends up having to be one of a few people, and King picks the one with the most dramatic potential, but if she had substituted a different ending, there's nothing in the text to make that implausible.
The characters are well-done (especially Bennett Grey, the title character), and of course the writing is excellent (on a sentence level), but otherwise this novel is far inferior to King's other work. (I've read most of the Martinelli novels, all of the Mary Russell novels, and three of the non-series novels, just so you know where I'm coming from.)
For a similar feel (British country house suspense plus politics and intrigue) with a much tighter plot, try Jo Walton's _Farthing_ (and the sequel, _Ha'penny_).
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