Dan Brown and John Jakes Collide Uneasily in a Forgettable The Lost Constitution
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Author: William Martin
Title: The Lost Constitution Genre: thriller A generation or so ago it seemed that every human in the English-speaking world was reading the historical fiction of John Jakes. It started with The Bastard and moved on to The Rebels and from there to The Seekers¹, Furies, Titans, Warriors, Lawless, and, finally, Americans: the history of the fictional Kent family, one of whom magically popped up at every important juncture in the history of the USA. This generation, every person in the English-speaking world seems to be reading (or to have read) The da Vinci Code and the host of imitators of Dan Brown's thriller. Most of them entail a simplistic plot in which the hero seeks a long-lost artifact of import far beyond monetary value; usually while fleeing Knights Templar or a similar band of warriors hell-bent on preventing discovery. You had to know someone would eventually combine those two plots... tada: The Lost Constitution! Peter Fallon's researched some interesting documents in his day - the log of the Mayflower, a missing Shakespeare manuscript - but probably none so important as one of the annotated first drafts of the U. S. Constitution. With a movement to repeal the Second Amendment boiling its way through Congress, the possibility of a voice from the past offering additional insight into the Framers' purpose has people on both sides of the argument champing at the bit. Fallon finds himself in the uncomfortable (and probably unethical) position of having promised prominent supporters of both sides they'd get "first" look when he finds it. Strange principles, our Mr. Fallon... The draft (if it even still exists) has had quite a history; beginning with the day it was filched from young Will Pike (by his brother, no less) while the lad was supposed to be protecting it "with his life" during the Philadelphia Convention. In the next 218 years it's been ripped off, bartered, swapped, hidden, extorted, and just about anything else that can happen to a document as it's moved down the twisted lineage of the Pike family (on both sides of the blanket, if you know what I mean). And as Fallon tracks it down through all the generations and throughout New England, someone seems to have been there before him at every step along the way. With clients like a left-wing Congresswoman, a retired judge who heads a "rod and gun club," a filthy-rich liberal broadcaster, and the founder of an ultraconservative think tank all dogging his every move, Fallon and his motley crew are kept hopping. But then the bodies start mounting and Peter's sweetie Evangeline is taken hostage - all of which really puts the spring of desperation in his step. With a major confrontation scheduled for the pre-game show at the first game of the World Series (at Fenway Park vs. the Yankees, natch) Fallon finds himself gallivanting about the six New England states as though he's trying to arrange for plaques everywhere proclaiming "Peter Fallon Slept Here." Rest assured, however, that all will be well in the end... depending, of course, on what you consider "well." The Lost Constitution is William Martin's fourth novel featuring rare bookseller Peter Fallon, and his seventh overall - including a couple of historical novels à la the aforementioned John Jakes. This time, he's simplified the writing process by stitching together half of a "multigenerational saga" (in which a member of the Pike family seems to show up at every important event in New England for at least 100 years) and half of a "hunt-for-the-priceless-document" novel in the manner of Brown. Sadly, neither of the two halves is very interesting - and the combination turns out to be a classic example of a whole that is less than the sum of its parts. The "historical" section is about as contrived a period piece as I've witnessed in many a year, full of doughty New Englanders spouting "live free or die!" and replete with beautiful women bearing illegitimate offspring (seems to be at least one bastard in every generation of the Pike family saga). People live to Methuselah-like ages, still hale and hearty well into their nineties (how else can someone who was there at Philadelphia also be around for the Gettysburg Address?) Though (probably) well-researched and an interesting depiction of the history of the six little states in the upper-right corner of the country, the historical stuff is just too thin to be of much interest. It's all the Horatio Alger clichés you've ever seen rolled into a single family history, and every successive chapter serves only as a vehicle for moving the Constitution somewhere else, thus leading modern-day Fallon around by the nose. And the modern-day segments? a mish-mash of senseless twists and turns, peopled mainly by two kinds of stereotypes: the "exactly what you'd expect of a gun-nut | liberal" on the one hand, and the "insert massive twist in character description here" on the other. You've got your militiamen running around in the woods armed to the teeth, your strident urban liberal woman. For artificial contrast, you have your gun-control fanatic who happens to be a dead-eye with a rifle; or your screeching female conservative talk-show host who's secretly lesbian. They're actually to be expected - the main character is the typical "street kid who grows up to be a debonair bookseller." Ugh: that's trying way too hard! Perhaps worst is that the motives of the modern-day characters are murky and the plot is overly convoluted. The reason for the multiple murders is apparently that the killer just got stuck in murder mode and didn't stop. Booo. The Lost Constitution ends up with a plot so labyrinthine that, instead of a moment of truth in which Fallon shouts "Professor Mustard in the Conservatory with the Letter Opener!" Martin must create a chapter near the end in which he (the author) provides what readers are still on board a written timeline of all the events up to this point - yuck. The Dan Brown-like chasing around New England gives Martin a chance to plug a few of his favorite spots while recounting the history of some of the oldest parts of the country; with retelling of events like Shays' Rebellion that many of us only barely touched on in high-school history. Other than that? The Lost Constitution suffers from being neither a very interesting historical novel nor being a very interesting thriller. Skip it. ¹ I don't know about everyone else, but I quit about here... all content copyright © 2014 by scmrak
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