Harvard Yard (Peter Fallon #2) by William Martin

Every time I read a novel by William Martin, I feel so lucky to have found him and have long since elevated him to my favorite author list.  I’ve yet to read a bad or even an “OK” book by him. They all hold precious real estate on my best book shelf.  I can now add that his Peter Fallon series is among my favorite series of all…ever.  This series combines many of my favorite genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, and modern day thrillers, all in a single superb novel.  They can be read as stand alones but it would be better to read them in order.

This is the second of the Peter Fallon books (following the excellent "Back Bay" and the first thing I noticed is that we’ve jumped a number of years forward from the end of the last book.  Peter is now a well-regarded antiquarian book dealer and has stumbled across a clue to a long lost, never before known, Shakespearean play titled ‘Love’s Labours Won’, a companion to his well-known play with a similar name.  In the hands of a lesser author, such a premise would strike me immediately with thoughts like ‘here we go again’ and ‘haven’t I seen this before’ and I would most probably pass it by in search of a better book to read.  But since it is William Martin, I knew I was in for an amazing journey.

As in the first book of the series, chapters alternate between the present day Peter Fallon mystery/thriller plot where he hunts for further clues to the history behind the lost play, all the time being hounded by rivals willing to kill for such a valuable find, and the past whereby we get to witness history unfold and actually see what happened along the way. Every time Peter uncovers a new piece of the puzzle, we then get to go back and see how that actually came to be. This leads to a fascinating, page-turning read.

There are numerous historical characters in this novel, as you might imagine considering we get to travel through all of American history from 1605 to the present, following the fictional Wedge family and their caretaker approach to the Shakespearean manuscript.  In 1605, a good friend to Shakespeare, Robert Harvard, received the play as a gift and it is his son, John Harvard who was instrumental in founding the first college in America. The setting for most of this novel is Harvard University and, indeed, it really becomes a character in and of itself. So many major American historical figures graduated from Harvard or taught there, or both, and the novel benefits from all of them. Major events and eras such as the Puritan’s witch burning, the fires of the Civil War, the riots of the 1960s and famous figures such as Cotton Mather, heroes of the Boston Tea Party and the Revolutionary War, through the era of Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, Joe and Jack Kennedy, etc. etc. all play out on the Harvard stage. And through it all runs the thread of the lost Shakespearean play.

I must say, I have never been a huge fan of Harvard University. Not sure why really, other than a lifelong image of an old stodgy institution that seemed in a world all its own and so not for a common sort of fellow like myself. But this novel really opened up my eyes about Harvard and helped me to appreciate its history and what it stands for. Just the fact that Harvard (formed initially in 1636 and known as ‘New College’) was renamed for John Harvard in 1639 because of his gift of his personal library of some 400 books is awesome. And to see the school meander its way through history, witness its ups and downs, its triumphs and controversies, is really to watch the evolution of the entire country as well.

The patriarch of the fictional Wedge family and good friend to John Harvard, Isaac Wedge was fond of saying “A man is best known by his books”. That is a sentiment that I can certainly relate to and I am proud to count this book among my own library.