The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise Paperback – 23 Aug. 2011

I absolutely loved this book. My normal reading diet is dominated by crime thrillers, spy novels and adventure stories. For the sake of variety I make myself read a book outside these genres every 4th book. This was one of those 4th books.The story involves an improbable cast of characters (the inhabitants of the Tower of London) most of whom are emotionally stuck. The central characters are a couple struggling to come to terms with the tragic loss of their only son. Weaved around the central story are this separate threads of the secondary characters which include the vicar of the Tower's chapel, the landlady of the Tower's pub, a tattoed ticket inspector and a work colleague at the London Underground Lost Property office, all of whom are searching for love in their lonely lives.The novel is written in a feather light and humorous style. The author's choice of the improbable setting of the Tower of London and the plot device of the introduction of a menagerie are strokes of genius that provide the perfect backdrop for the chief protagonist, Balthazar Jones, to act out his grief as he marches the battlements in the dead of night and display his humanity in his generous treatment of his animal charges. Similarly his wife, Hebe's, job at the London Underground Lost Property office offers her the perfect tonic to her own troubles as against all odds she successfully reunites people with their long lost treasures.This book had me smiling, chuckling and laughing out loud all the way through until the final two pages when I cried my eyes out. A wonderful shot of whimsical joy in these troubled times!

It's a feel good book

I had only read "The Matchmaker of Pèrigord" by Julia Stewart and found it marvellously funny, but "The Tower ... was unexpectedly 'noir' and so saddening.

Lovely reading!

This is a wonderful, whimsical account of life in the Tower of London. The characters are warm and well developed, and the stories are poignant. Great humour. The historical facts are woven well into tales.

This work of fiction is so well written that you begin to believe it is a true story. Combining the history of the Tower of London with a modern 'what if?' is brilliantly done by Ms. Stuart.The premise is 'What if' the tower once again opened the menagerie of exotic animal 'gifts' to the Queen? It is a simple question, but this book has you crying, laughing out loud, sympathizing with romantically challenge persons and more.The story follows the Yeoman Warder (Beefeater,) Balthazar Jones, as he is assigned being 'in charge' of re-opening the Menagerie. If this isn't enough for the poor man, he is also trying to cope with the death of his young son, Milo. His wife, Hebe Jones, has the most unusual job of working for the Underground's lost and found. Hebe is also torn by Milo's passing and finds her marriage in deep trouble.There are other characters that will have you laughing, sighing, and hoping for their favorable outcome in life. Meanwhile, there are the Penguins, Bearded Pig, Giraffes and more. Also, Mrs. Cook, a 181 year old Tortoise who gets her revenge on...well, I'm not going to spoil this tale.This is an excellent novel and reads so quickly as the story compels you to see what happens. I'm looking forward to Ms. Stuart's next novel in my TBR piles, "The Pigeon Pie Mystery." This is a treat yourself book.

I found this story not only humorous but also quite educational.The history of the Tower of London was fascinating. The characters were colourful & unpredictable.I enjoyed reading this book.

At first I thought this was another one of those quaint novels featuring wacky English eccentrics. After all, it's about a man named Balthazar Jones of all things. He's one of those retired soldiers who works at the Tower of London, the ones we know as Beefeaters. His Greek wife Hebe works in the London subway's lost-and-found, and they live in the Tower with their 104-year-old tortoise. He collects rain samples; she find that annoying. How cute. Then I read the bit about how their only son died under mysterious circumstances some years before the novel opens and how they have been unable to discuss it or support each other through the tragedy. Not so cute.Still, "The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise" does a remarkable job of handling that material without bogging down into soap opera territory. This brings us back to that English eccentricity; I wonder if such a story could be set anywhere other than England and still retain that lightness of touch. With all due respect, for instance, how serious can a story possibly be when so many of the main characters dress in that outfit? It looks like some designer got a job in a clown-costume factory and couldn't quite remember where to put the accordion pleats. (Just take a look at the nearest bottle of Beefeater gin if you're not sure what I'm talking about - that's the dress uniform, but the daily uniform looks like a sort of depressed version of the same getup.)Besides the clothing, the story also includes a clergyman who writes romance novels in his spare time, the man who spends his days taking care of the Tower's collection of ravens, the lost-and-found's other employee who alleviates her boredom by trying on the false beards people have left on the trains, and a few dozen other oddballs. Then you take another look and realize that they're all, without exception, looking for love. That's a nice touch from the author, who presents us with a genuinely loving couple in crisis as her main characters.At which point we learn that the Queen has decided to restart an ancient tradition by moving all her exotic animals - the ones that foreign leaders have presented to her - from London Zoo to the Tower. She wants to have the Beefeaters set up a menagerie on the Tower grounds, like the one that used to be there in previous centuries. And on top of all his other problems, who gets to take care of these animals and birds? Balthazar, that's who. Well, a man needs a hobby.If there's a weakness to this novel it's that from this point onward, the outcome is pretty much of a foregone conclusion. Just about all the characters are people of good will, and we all know what happens to people of good will in a romantic comedy, no matter how many obstacles they have to get through. This is a quirky, touching, sometimes moving romantic comedy - there's a child's death involved, for goodness' sake - but a romantic comedy nonetheless.The author intelligently loaded in some structural weight to balance the lightness of her materials. Most noticeably, everyone in this story has some connection to the Tower of London, and that shared background provides the characters with some dimension, some life outside of the romance machinery. They didn't just drift into this story by coincidence; they were there already. A romance, like any fiction, is an artifice, but things like the common setting make this one seem more natural.Another structural stroke that lends this confection some weight is Hebe's activities on behalf of the London subway's lost-and-found. She and her colleague don't just collect lost objects and take advantage of them - reading the books and diaries, trying on the clothes, trying to open the safe - they also look for the owners and return the things. Some of the people they encounter in this endeavor have stories of their own to tell and contributions of their own to make. They even have something to say about what's happened to Balthazar and Hebe.Still, although this novel is more than a piece of cotton candy, it remains a romantic comedy. On the other hand, "Pride and Prejudice" is also a romantic comedy. What makes that one great, and this one good?In the end, of course, you'll have to figure that out for yourself - there may even be those among you who think that "The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise" is great and "Pride and Prejudice" good, although if that's your opinion you and I are going to have to discuss sports or television shows rather than literature when we meet. My sense is that the respective quality of this novel and others has to do with a couple of things, plausibility and imagination.Ms. Stuart has done a very fine job in this work, but no one really lives like her characters - even, I suspect, the real Yeoman Warders of the Tower. The greatest danger they face is sadness; painful but bearable. The characters in "Pride and Prejudice" face the real possibility of homelessness. Those in "Tom Jones" face public humiliation or domestic violence. Those in "Catch-22" face actual death. All very funny, partly because the stakes are so high. As has been said before, when someone in a silent movie slips on a banana peel, it's funny because you can't see the bruises, but you know the bruises are there. This novel doesn't quite reach that level.But let's not take that whole business too seriously. All it really means is that "The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise" isn't a classic. Not yet, anyway - only time will tell. Meanwhile, this novel is very funny, often moving, and in the end triumphant. Wait until you learn, in the last line, what that tortoise accomplishes.Benshlomo says, If it bends, it's funny - if it breaks, it's not.

Love Julia Stuart