The Bequest

PhD candidate Isabel Henley, the narrator of Margaret’s impressive if flawed debut, follows her older college chum, Rose Brewster, to Scotland’s St. Stephens University, where she learns that the rock-star feminist scholar who was to be her thesis adviser has just died in a hiking accident. Flash forward a few months. Only the occasional outing with Rose or fantasizing about a broodingly handsome young lecturer relieves the lonely Isabel’s immersion in the lives of 16th-century monarch Catherine de’ Medici and her female court. Rose’s subsequent disappearance puts Isabel on the trail of a priceless emerald legend claims was brought from Brazil to Italy by the subject of Rose’s dissertation, Catherine’s courtier Federico Falcone. As Isabel embarks on a high-stakes intellectual treasure hunt that will take her from the Falcone family’s Genoese palazzo to archives in Florence and Paris, the author not only maintains suspense but makes the historical figures come vibrantly alive through their correspondence. Indeed, the contemporary characters pale by comparison, and a couple of key figures swing wildly between winningly seductive and sociopathic, particularly as dictated by the hairpin turns of the far-fetched denouement. Despite such speed bumps, however, readers will eagerly await Margaret’s next. Agent: Jody Kahn, Brandt & Hochman. (Oct.)