A Tangle of Knots

Young Mason Burgess, clutching a suitcase, boards a bus for Philadelphia. Told to check it, he grudgingly does. But during the journey his suitcase mysteriously disappears. Fast-forward fifty-three years. Mason, now down on his luck, rents rooms to a number of seemingly disparate characters. They live in a world much like our own, but one populated by those who have Talents (including precision spitting, knot-tying, and knitting) and those, known as Fair, who do not. This jumble of information comes quickly in the beginning chapters; a single cliffhanger creates context: "In just one short week, every last one of them would have lost the thing they treasured most in the world." With so many individuals (from an orphan who can bake the perfect cake to a mystery writer who has lost her ability to use words) and situations, it is plot, rather than character, that drives the novel. Mason's half-a-century quest for his suitcase never develops as an arc and becomes an awkward, ancillary distraction. Instead, Cady, the cake baker (nine recipes included), gives the novel its heart. Her search for a family uncovers a multilayered backstory, with events from each character's life connecting to her own. Graff's first foray into fantasy resembles a jigsaw puzzle without a box-cover illustration; one must put all the pieces in place before the big picture is revealed. betty carter