I picked up this book because the reviews were great and it sounded intriguingly quirky. I was very disappointed for reasons that I see echoed in a few other reviews.

The characters were pretty much only their quirks. I felt there was very little character development beyond the brief descriptions given at the beginning of the book.

The repetition of phrases drove me to distraction. For example, first Stuart tells us that Mrs. Jones "never entered [the room at the top of the Salt Tower] because the chalk graffiti left on the walls by the German U-boat men imprisoned during the Second World War gave her the creeps." Less than 100 pages later, she repeats that it is "the room his wife never entered, as the chalk graffiti left on the walls by the German U-boat men imprisoned during the war gave her the creeps." No less than three times, the same character is described as wearing "shoes that forced her toes into two red triangles." Lazy writing? Lazy editing? Both? Either way, it was extremely distracting.

The reason I kept reading was to find out the big secret. I was very, very disappointed by the anticlimactic reveal at the end of the book. Seriously, the big secret was stupid and made me think even less of the characters than I already had.

Most people who have reviewed this book seem to love it, but I wouldn't personally recommend it.

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There's a whole lot to like about this loopy novel, from the setting to the characters to the historical asides, all told with precisely the proper amount of tea-and-crumpet British reserve.

The tale centers around Yeoman Warder Balthazar Jones and his wife, drifting slowly but inevitably apart as they continue to grieve the loss of their only child, but Stuart has set this in a totally unique setting. Jones is a Beefeater â yes, one of those guys in the funny costumes who guards (and lives in) the Tower of London â that ancient and honorable collection of structures on an island in the Thames, famous in most peoples' minds as the place where Henry VIII stowed unwanted wives until he could lop their heads off.

Well, yes. But ever so much more. And while the book is a novel, not a history of the Tower, the reality of its history permeates the lives of the people who live there. (Who knew? It's like finding out that a sizable population inhabits the Lincoln Monument.) If your nights are disturbed by the ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh pacing about and smoking his pipe, or if you go down to breakfast each morning along a staircase worn smooth by the steps of disgraced courtiers, or if your job (and passion) includes preserving symbols of national pride, even if you have to fudge thing a little to make it happen, it's bound to affect your everyday moments.

Then there's the revival of a centuries-gone custom â the housing of exotic animals in a Royal menagerie, removed from its home as a subset of the London Zoo, to take up residence in the Tower. If Balthazar Jones didn't have enough trouble under his own roof, he found plenty in being assigned as keeper to a flock of missing penguins, an illicitly acquired bearded pig, a troop of monkeys with exhibitionist tendencies, a venomous, carnivorous reptile big enough to take down a horse, and a lovelorn albatross.

There are a fair amount of lovelorn characters wandering around this pile of venerated stone â from the aforementioned Joneses to the curate who secretly pens bodice-ripper romances, to the licentious ravenmaster, to the novel-devouring keeper of lost items and the pub owner who has a secret that absolutely cannot be kept for long â all glide or romp or pine through the pages, juggling the here-and-now with the echoes of a past that stretches back a thousand years yet is never more than an arm's reach away.

This is a delightful read, and the perfect antidote for whatever ails you.

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