One of my favorite sites, the wonderfully named
Biblioklept, has posted a nice review of
The Book on Fire:
"Balthazar, the hero of Keith Miller’s agile and trippy novel
The Book on Fire, is a biblioklept. He comes to Alexandria to rob the famous library, a cavernous, labyrinthine complex that still exists—under heavy guard—in Miller’s mystical version of that ancient Egyptian city. Miller’s Alexandria is a byzantine maze, humming with a turn-of-the-century buzz, a kaleidoscope world that strongly reminded me of the strange cityscapes of William Gibson or William Burroughs. . . .
"For Balthazar, books are a drug, and the Library of Alexandria is the heady nexus point for his addiction. . . . While
The Book on Fire does have the strong, page turning plot of a thriller, that plot exists mostly as the bones for Miller to hang rapturous descriptions of reading and books and, best of all, his strange Alexandria, a city of marvels."
Published on April 17, 2012 07:05