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kittiwakeBook 1 of The Avignon Quintet
I sat there among these fragments of the great puzzle of Rob's unfinished novel whose dismembered fragments littered the muniments room, and heard Toby picking out his one-fingered tune, merciless as a woodpecker. "Sylvie." She raised her dark head and gazed at me abstractedly, her eyes still full of playing cards and their magic.
This book starts with Bruce, a doctor approaching retirement, being called back to France after the suspicious death of his brother-in-law and lover Piers. Eventually Bruce starts to suspect that Piers' supposed suicide may be related to his gnostic beliefs. As young men, Bruce and Piers were both posted to Egypt, Piers as a French diplomat, and Bruce as a doctor working for the British embassy. Along with their friend Toby and Piers' sister Sylvie who had come out to Egypt to visit them, they met a gnostic mystic called Akkad, although only Piers fell entirely under his spell and went on to become a life-long gnostic.
In the 1930s, before Bruce and Piers joined the diplomatic service, when Bruce, Piers and Sylvie are living in an ancient chateau near Avignon in a ménage à trois. before they are visited by their friend Toby, a historian writing a book about the Templars based on documents found in the chateau, and by Sutcliffe, Toby's friend and Bruce's former brother-in-law.
But The Avignon Quintet is a work of metafiction, so things aren't that simple, as it soon becomes clear that all the people mentioned above are characters invented by an author called Blanford.
I sat there among these fragments of the great puzzle of Rob's unfinished novel whose dismembered fragments littered the muniments room, and heard Toby picking out his one-fingered tune, merciless as a woodpecker. "Sylvie." She raised her dark head and gazed at me abstractedly, her eyes still full of playing cards and their magic.
This book starts with Bruce, a doctor approaching retirement, being called back to France after the suspicious death of his brother-in-law and lover Piers. Eventually Bruce starts to suspect that Piers' supposed suicide may be related to his gnostic beliefs. As young men, Bruce and Piers were both posted to Egypt, Piers as a French diplomat, and Bruce as a doctor working for the British embassy. Along with their friend Toby and Piers' sister Sylvie who had come out to Egypt to visit them, they met a gnostic mystic called Akkad, although only Piers fell entirely under his spell and went on to become a life-long gnostic.
In the 1930s, before Bruce and Piers joined the diplomatic service, when Bruce, Piers and Sylvie are living in an ancient chateau near Avignon in a ménage à trois. before they are visited by their friend Toby, a historian writing a book about the Templars based on documents found in the chateau, and by Sutcliffe, Toby's friend and Bruce's former brother-in-law.
But The Avignon Quintet is a work of metafiction, so things aren't that simple, as it soon becomes clear that all the people mentioned above are characters invented by an author called Blanford.
