The Nature of Things

I learned about this book when I saw it on one of those lists of "books you should read this summer." I found the premise, involving looting of Aztec artifacts from Mexico and the dangerous and obsessive competition among collectors of those artifacts, to be intriguing, and I added it to my reading queue. Well, I didn't get around to reading it in the summer, but it turns out it is just as interesting in the autumn. The book was a bit difficult to get into at first because the writer uses the device of multiple points of view to tell the story, and, as the short chapters toggle back and forth between those various points of view of characters who are a mystery to the reader, the reader suffers mild whiplash in trying to keep up. But perhaps one-quarter of the way into it, the story started coming together. I'd gotten a handle on those disparate characters and could begin to follow each of them into their parts of the narrative. The story briefly is this: Anna Ramsey i...