Review of "Touchstone" by Laurie R. King

In this everything-old-is-new-again historical novel, we're in London in the mid-1920's. An American agent, Harris Stuyvesant, is searching for a murderer responsible for several terrorist bombings in the US. He joins forces with Bennett Grey, a WWI veteran who came out of that conflict with a deep-rooted dread of man's ability to be mindlessly brutal and an innate sense of when someone is lying to him. Stuyvesant's prime suspect is a leading British politician, which means he and Grey must tread carefully. Its a bit of a plod through King's elaborate descriptions, and the socialist politics of England's evolving labor movement seem arcane now, but there is a reward in the last third of the book when the pace picks up and so will your pulse. Fans of King's previous work may be disappointed here, but its still a fine novel.