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Nell Young earned a PhD from a prestigious institution, yet she finds herself wallowing in the lowest tier of work available in her chosen field. Her position didn’t occur by accident, however. Rather, it was a deliberate move by her father in retaliation for Nell’s persistence in learning more about a cheap, crummy highway map from the 1930s. Since that event several years ago, she has had no contact with him and refuses to respond to a recent spate of telephone calls from the accursed man. Major Mistake.
Now he is dead at his desk, and the security cameras show absolutely nothing. Nell finds that very same map that led to all of her current problems in a hiding place only she knows about. What is it about this pitiful old map that makes it the nexus of her frustrating universe?
Nell teams up with a former colleague to hunt down her father’s old schoolmates and finds all of them remarkably tight-lipped about his life, this map, and Nell’s deceased mother. Mile by mile, the pair painstakingly uncover deeply held secrets and piece together a complex puzzle of love, jealousy and, yes, historic maps. By carefully teasing bits of narrative from people who were once dear to both of her parents, Nell chances upon something completely unimaginable, darkly sinister, and yet totally wonderful.
My greatest friend of almost 50 years is a former professional cartographer. We have both loved (and accumulated) maps all of our lives. No member of either of our families understands or shares our fascination with these items, but everyone tolerates the mess. Very rarely, one or both of us are consulted over a geographic oddity, which makes it all worthwhile. Therefore, I personally found The Cartographers completely entrancing. I do not read a lot of fiction anymore, yet this work had so much map-centric activity that I could not stop until I finished it.
The conclusion, however, was a little bit disappointing. I thought the story of this mystery book was going one way (which would have been lame), feared another direction (which would have been stupid), and found out it was somewhere in between. Not terrible, but also certainly not fulfilling. The ride was still very, very satisfying, so I ultimately have no complaints. In fact, I was reading it on a vacation to New York, where the story takes place, and was able to visit some of the landmarks described in the text.
Rated: Mild. Very few mild instances of profanity and two superficially described intimate encounters.
