Bless the Thief

by Alan Wall

A first novel of remarkable ingenuity, Bless the Thief is a fast-paced literary mystery involving a secret society, art forgery, and the Hindenburg disaster. Born to an American mother and a British father, Tom Lynch lives with his mother in America until she sends him off to his appointed guardian in England, Patrick Grimshaw. Grimshaw becomes a surrogate father to Tom, who never knew his real father, and he inducts Tom into the mysterious Delaquay...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 060960158X
• ISBN13: 9780609601587
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 211 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Well written intellectual novel

Most definitely a thinking man/woman's novel. I am still in the process of reading this book, but so far have been very intrigued. Though not as thrilling as the page-turner Da Vinci Code, I think it is a more profound book than Dan Brown's, which is mostly speculation. I find myself wanting to know more about many of the historical events Wall discusses in the novel, especially about Thomas More and the Protestant intolerance for Catholics during the Elizabethan reign. If you like thought-provoking fiction, this should be right up your alley. Also check out his The School of Night.

Difficult book, more difficult to evaluate.

The fact that you have come this page at all to read about this obscure book suggests that you will probably like it. It's not a book for everybody--I'm not sure how much it was a book for me, though I did like it. The book jacket's advertising and the published plot summaries suggest that this an unusual coming-of-age story, combined with a mystery. It is these things, but describing the book in terms of plot emphasizes its least important aspects and, to some extent, misleads the reader into thinking that this is primarily an entertainment. It is, instead, a very serious study of theology, historical analysis, world literature, literary criticism, philosophy, aesthetics, ethics, and morality, using the story as a vehicle for communicating weighty ideas. On its most basic level, the book concerns Tom Lynch, born after his father's death in the Hindenburg disaster and rejected by his mother when he was a child. Sent to boarding school on the moors of England at an extremely young age, he becomes a protégé of the very religious and kind, but stuffy, headmaster. It is here that he first sees a book illustrated by the artist Delaquay, a man so concerned with the aesthetic implications of reproducing artwork, that he has always refused to have his own work published or displayed in public. Each of his books consists of just one original edition. Tom goes off to Oxford to study at the Lenau Institute of Art, supported by the secret Delaquay Society, and he eventually becomes its secretary. Alas, Tom is unable to adhere to the strict requirements of Delaquay Society membership, begins drinking heavily, and falls into physical and moral decline. The book is full of lectures on abstract ideas and contains moral lessons galore as Tom tries to get his life back on track. The first fifty pages are particularly challenging as the author sets up the thematic framework which makes Tom's descent so meaningful and the conclusion of the novel so dramatic. Despite the lecturing, which seemed dry to me when I read it, the book is surprisingly moving by its conclusion, and I've found myself coming back to it, picking at it again and again, finding new insights each time I do. It's a most unusual book and will appeal primarily to those readers with a strong background in philosophy and aesthetics. Mary Whipple