Gripping from the outset, this ambitious but disjointed thriller by Forbes (Bombay Ice) swirls travel, botany and photography into a dizzying tale of murder and family mystery. Forensic photographer Claire Fleetwood is an American expatriate living in England when she inherits Eden Dwellings, the estate of a heretofore unknown relative, located in the heart of the ramshackle East End of London. Not long after she moves in, 18-year-old Sally Rivers, the estate caretaker's daughter, is murdered at Claire's front gate, and Claire sets out to unravel the mystery not only of Sally's death but of her own tangled family history. She gathers a plot-hampering amount of detail, immersing herself in the library of the house's former occupants, Joseph Ironstone, her great-great-uncle, and his wife, Magda, a botanical explorer born into a family of opium planters in India. A present-day Ironstone, Claire's cousin, Jack, studies chlorophyll at a pharmaceutical company and is on the hunt for a "miraculous," cancer-preventing green poppy. His search takes him to a valley between Bhutan and Tibet, and he invites Claire to travel with his team as official photographer. Eager to escape London and enticed by the opportunity to learn more about her heritage, she accepts. Though Claire is a likable narrator, her spark is nearly extinguished by mounds of scientific and ancestral data, and the many narrative strands—ranging from Claire's brother dying of AIDS to a strange riff on Jack the Ripper—prevent a tidy resolution. Claire's first-person narration is replaced three-quarters of the way through by a third-person viewpoint, which, though it focuses on Claire, can't compare to her tough, candid voice. As unwieldy as an overstuffed suitcase, the novel still exudes creativity and boundless vitality. (May)
