When did high finance become a treacherous business? On day one, seems to be Iain Pears' answer in Stone's Fall, his labyrinthine historical thriller that travels (sometimes nimbly, sometimes ploddingly) back to the dawn of modern trading and on through two world wars. The first of three narrators — a London crime reporter hired by a young widow in 1909 to investigate her dead industrialist husband's will — provides a swift education in the intricacies of international banking before the narrative leaps back in time and deeper into intrigue. This is a massive and well-made book, one ultimately better at characterizing money matters than human affairs. B