RaveThe AtlanticSet in 19th-century New Zealand, at the height of the West Coast Gold Rush, The Luminaries recalls the literary style of the time with impressive accuracy: It’s a massive tome, weighing in at 832 pages, but contains sentence after sentence of quietly observed detail … Catton maintains multiple storylines with Dickensian dexterity—hapless protagonist Alistair Lauderback stumbles on a string of grisly murders while a cabal of local men convene in secret to discuss them. These intertwined plots unfold against the backdrop of a frontier town that runs on vice: sex, drugs, and murder.
