Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Book Store packs a lot into a small space. The bookstore is tiny but holds many volumes of mysterious coded books. The book is likewise short and intense; it’s a suspenseful novel without violence. Mysteries are uncovered; puzzles are solved using research and technology.
It has a story for our time, where both old knowledge (early printed books) and the latest new knowledge (Google on steroids) work together to solve a maze of puzzles.
While I liked the plot and characters, I did notice a certain claustrophobic quality to the scenes. The characters were always in small dimly lit or dark spaces. Maybe because they were usually reading or staring at a screen, there were almost no scenes outdoors, let alone in nature. The main characters are twenty something years old; shouldn’t they play outside once in a while? Except for that personal quirk, I enjoyed the book.
Published on February 03, 2014 12:24