WEIN, Elizabeth

Julia Beaufort-Stuart (called Julie), whom readers first met as a captured WWII pilot and spy in Code Name Verity (rev. 5/12), begins this prequel in 1938 as an earnest fifteen-year-old who returns from school to her family's dwindling Scottish estate. While idling by the river, overcome by nostalgia, she is mysteriously knocked unconscious. She's rescued by a group of Travellers, who are, unsurprisingly, seen as suspects of the assault by the bigoted townspeople. Julie can't remember what happened; but she believes she's the last person to have seen the now-missing Dr. Housman, an antiques scholar cataloging the family's estate before auction. The ensuing atmospheric mystery, complete with love affairs, gruesome offstage violence, three-thousand-year-old artifacts, and pearls once owned by royalty, is smaller in scale than Verity or its concentration camp-set companion Rose Under Fire (rev. 11/13). In this setting, Julie has the time and space for relatively carefree impulsivity, including sexual experimentation (with both male and female kissing partners). But there's plenty of evidence of who Julie will become, from her eagerness for adventure to her ire at the mistreatment of the Travellers (explored further in an appended author's note). Wein's ability to inhabit a young woman of another era has more than enough room to shine through in the often witty first-person narration. The Pearl Thief stands alone as a diverting piece of historical fiction/mystery but takes on extra poignancy for those aware of Julie's eventual fate. shoshana flax