Good, enjoyed all the book lore. Noir romance felt a bit forced to me. Will try another, as this was the first ( )

Disappointing ( )

Preposterous and totally pleasurable. ( )

This book took a little while to get going and it is a little dated 1986, in the way the main character acts. But it takes place in Denver, which is where the author lives, it has loads of information about book scouting and buying valuable books and the mystery is rather well imagined. ( )

between 3 and 3.5 stars. i really never tire of books where the main character is a big reader or it takes place in the book world, and this is a more unusual take, where the mystery is among the book dealers in the rare book world in denver. so that's a big plus for me. really fun to be in all the stores and to scout the books discussed. that ended up being a much bigger part of the story than i expected, and it was great.

the mystery, which was wrapped around the book stuff, was also therefore fun for me, and definitely took some unexpected turns.

the parts i liked less or am unsure about are also throughout the book. first, and this is probably me, but it didn't feel at all like 1986 to me, but more like 1966 or even earlier. this is likely just me thinking that 1986 wasn't really that long ago, but over and over this struck me as feeling like it was taking place long before he wrote it. it also seemed like a strange decision to give the main character political views that almost certainly would offend just about everyone. i think he was trying to make him seem like a good guy but one that people might find tough, but i feel like the way he did this was just alienating to everyone. along the same lines, i didn't really see a reason to insult all the authors that he does. he talks trash about so many modern authors and their quality of writing, and that just feels both unnecessary and kind of mean. both of these seemed a really strange choice to me, when there were other ways of saying what he wanted, without specifically naming things/people that could insult or antagonize readers. i also didn't at all like the dalliance the main character had with the book appraiser; nothing about that felt real to me (except her anger and betrayal at his lack of trust in her). and i hated the way he treated the woman who was being abused by the man he thought had committed the murders; he seemed to feel no understanding for her fear and anguish.

but, the mystery was good and being in that world was really fun for me. the writing was also good, and the pages kept turning pretty quickly every time i picked this up. somehow in spite of the faults, i still really enjoyed this. ( )