Steady Running of the Hour (Go) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
With this debut, Justin Go deploys the elements of a caper—an unclaimed fortune, an illicit affair—in an assured literary thriller.
Wall Street Journal


Go’s intriguing first novel spans the 20th century… with vivid accounts of wartime France, pioneering mountaineering expeditions, and an isolated village in Iceland.
BBC


Go’s debut is ambitious in many ways: it evokes a time of privileged daring... [and] love that transcends time and disdains convention; and it fluidly moves between past and present.... [The] story, as told in flashback, feels heartfelt but overwrought, and the trench warfare and climbing scenes, while competently executed, mine an oft-depicted period without adding much that’s new.
Publishers Weekly


Gifted storyteller Go captures a period feel in the backstory through his narratives and uses dialog to reveal his characters' place among the affluent, while Tristan's contemporary story line profiles a young man making do with what he has and driven to unravel the truth behind his family's past. This story is a page-turner and an impressive first work, sure to be appreciated by fans of historical and travel fiction.  —Shirley Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA
Library Journal


Ambitious…this is a remarkable work.
Booklist


Debut novelist Go splices two stories in his extravagant, superficial debut.... Tristan, a young Californian, is told by a London lawyer [a] fortune is his if he can prove Imogen was his great-grandmother. The guy is a windup toy; Go sends him on a document search, traveling from Sweden to Paris to Berlin to Iceland to beat a seven-week deadline.... Go is a maximalist (lofty emotions, extreme settings) punching above his weight
Kirkus Reviews