The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise
By Julia Stuart
I have a weakness for whimsical British novels, which are usually stuffed to the brim with eccentric clergyman, snooping old ladies and a giddy village romance. Julia Stuart’s second novel, The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise, stays faithful to the old-fashioned charm of writers like Barbara Pym, but still manages to incorporate modern times.
Balthazar Jones (yes, he was teased mercilessly as a child) is a Beefeater. He lives with his wife, Hebe, inside London Tower, which is charmingly replete with prisoner scratchings from days gone by. The very-much-in-love middle-aged couple lost their son, Milo, to an unexpected and unexplained illness three years prior, and their marriage is threatened by Balthazar’s inability to discuss anything having to with their deceased child. He’s retreated into himself entirely and obsessively collects rainwater in small glass tubes, which he then catalogues. Balthazar isn’t a great Beefeater (he has the worst pickpocket catching record), but he does have a 109-year-old tortoise named Mrs. Cook, and because of that, the Queen thinks he’s the perfect choice to run the menagerie that will be going in the tower.
Mayhem ensues, as is often the case when you get miniature penguins, a lonely albatross, a zorilla, several giraffes and many other exotic creatures (all gifts to the Queen from heads of state) in one place. That should be enough to captivate the reader, but Stuart goes above and beyond, winding several plot lines around the Joneses; my favorite is the clergyman who writes erotica under a pseudonym and is in love with the local lady bar owner. I highly recommend this wonderfully written, charmingly eccentric book. —Jenn Kane