The last equation of Isaac Severy

a novel in clues

No cover

Nova Jacobs: The last equation of Isaac Severy (2018)

337 pages

English language

Published Dec. 30, 2018

ISBN:
978-1-5011-7512-1
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OCLC Number:
989963858

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4 stars (1 review)

"The Family Fang meets The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry in this literary mystery about a struggling bookseller whose recently deceased grandfather, a famed mathematician, left behind a dangerous equation for her to track down--and protect--before others can get their hands on it. Just days after mathematician and family patriarch Isaac Severy dies of an apparent suicide, his adopted granddaughter Hazel, owner of a struggling Seattle bookstore, receives a letter from him by mail. In it, Isaac alludes to a secretive organization that is after his final bombshell equation, and he charges Hazel with safely delivering it to a trusted colleague. But first, she must find where the equation is hidden. While in Los Angeles for Isaac's funeral, Hazel realizes she's not the only one searching for his life's work, and that the equation's implications have potentially disastrous consequences for the extended Severy family, a group of dysfunctional geniuses unmoored …

4 editions

Review of 'The last equation of Isaac Severy' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Fast read family drama / mystery with extra romantic entanglements. The math, and the idea of the equation, are a pretty cool MacGuffin. Can be a little slow through part one, leaving parts two and three hard to put down! An excellent first effort from Nova Jacobs.

The subtitle is "A Novel in Clues" and they are woven amongst the family. Each chapter is from a different characters point of view, and over the course of the novel, much about the family is revealed to both the characters and the reader. The main protagonist is a bookstore owner in Seattle, but that is merely background - she spends the majority of the novel in LA.

As a mystery, I was able to deduce a few things, but not all the ramifications. Other things eluded me, giving quite a surprise in the last few chapters. So much of the plot interlocks …

Subjects

  • Books and reading
  • Secret societies
  • Families
  • Mathematicians
  • Fiction