The following review, which appeared in the Halifax Chronicle Herald, is posted here by permission.

Paul Butler’s latest a treasure of a tale

By DAVID PITT

This is a very deceptive little book. It appears to be the sequel to Butler’s 2004 novel Easton, which recounted Peter Easton’s abduction (some might say seduction) of Sir Richard Whitbourne, the English nobleman who'd been sent to Newfoundland to capture the notorious "pirate admiral."

But here's the thing: Easton’s Gold is set in 1640, a quarter-century after the events of the first novel, and 20 years after Easton is generally presumed to have died (most sources peg the year of his demise as 1620). And, whereas the first novel was solidly grounded in fact, this one is, presumably, almost entirely fictional.

Easton was told in the past tense. Easton’s Gold is told in the present tense, with its point of view constantly shifting among its three central characters. Easton was about something that happened a long time ago; Easton's Gold is about something that is happening now, right here in front of our eyes.

The first novel was a story of politics and devotion and the subtle shading between good and evil. This one's about redemption, buried secrets, and revenge. In tone it’s a lot closer to Stoker’s Shadow, an earlier Butler novel: altogether more lyrical, and evocative, than its predecessor.

The story seems straightforward. Peter Easton, now an aged and respected nobleman living in France, is seized with the overpowering need to return to Newfoundland and find the son who’d been taken from him years earlier (during the events chronicled in Easton, the first novel). He takes with him on the long journey his young and beautiful servant, Gabriella, and Fleet, the enigmatic apothecary whose unconventional approach to medicine gives Easton a mental and physical vigour he hasn't felt in many a year.

But this seemingly straightforward story is full of surprises. Some of them are minor: the title, for instance, doesn’t refer to buried pirate treasure, but to the gold sovereigns Easton pays Fleet to sail with him to Newfoundland. Some of them are grander: Fleet, the apothecary, is a man of many mysteries, and Butler spends most of the novel layering on hints and clues and subtle foreshadowings about what really drives him. (Let's just say it isn’t a deep and abiding concern for Easton’s welfare, and leave it at that.)

In many ways, the novel really isn’t about Peter Easton, who’s nearing the end of a long life.

It's about Fleet, the young and curiously modern-thinking apothecary, whose every word and thought hints at a dark past that threatens to intrude upon the present.

Easton’s Gold and its predecessor are about as different as it's possible for two novels featuring the same character to be. They’re both excellent, but in very different ways.

If you’ve read Easton (and if you haven’t, why not?), you may be quite surprised by this novel’s shift in tone, subject matter, and philosophical underpinnings.

Easton’s Gold

by Paul Butler

(Flanker Press, paperback, 182 pages, $16.95)