Book Review: Findo’s Mousetrap

I was intrigued to receive a copy of Findo’s Mousetrap by Graham Plaskett for review. Plaskett’s debut novel is a modern romance featuring Stone Tape Theory, a Scottis laird, an Irish-American media darling… oh, and time travel. Sort of.

For those who don’t know, Stone Tape Theory is a real thing. It’s the theory that during emotional or traumatic events, electrical mental impressions are released, and somehow stored in rocks. Ghosts and hauntings are considered to be similar to tape recordings, where the impressions are released from the rocks.

In Findo’s mousetrap, the protagonist, Findo, has created a “time travel” machine using this theory; he calls it the mousetrap.  The mousetrap is not a time machine like you would find in Back to the Future; rather, it’s more like a projector of the past, whereby people in the modern day are able to “replay” events from the past. In order to do this though, one needs to know the exact date and location of the event to be replayed.

Findo is a Scottish laird who has chosen to work on his mousetrap rather than follow the family tradition of running the estate at Strath Gask. His friend Mac, whom he has known since childhood, has worked with him on the mousetrap. Early on in the book, Findo meets Dympna Doyle, and the three of them embark on a journey  of love and betrayal, digging up secrets from the past and creating a good old mess. They use the moustetrap to solve old mysteries including a royal mystery, and are taken from England to Scotland, to the USA I won’t tell you any more about the plotline, as I don’t want to spoil it for you!

Usually when you read a book about timetravel, it involves the protagonist going back through time and somehow causing a problem with their presence – like Marty McFly in Back to the Future and his photo with the disappearing family members. This book is refreshing in its different approach to time trave. And since Stone Tape Theory is a real thing, it seems more credible as well. I love the originality of the premise; it’s unlike anything I’ve read before.

While reading the book you can tell the author is a professional writer. It is well written, with clear sentence structure and proper wording. This also lends itself to the characters, as they’re all fairly posh!

I enjoyed reading this book, even though it’s not the sort of thing I’d normally go for. There were points where I would have liked to know more, to have more going on between the characters or more tension. It’s a fantastic idea and a great story but I felt a bit like something was missing – you know when you just can’t put your finger on it? I would still recommend it as a good read though, as it’s a really interesting concept for a book and is well-written.

Thanks for reading.

You can read my other book reviews here.