Return of the Verdilak

Lately I've been reading multiple books at once, a chapter here andc there of completely unrelated things: the second Denton novel by Kenneth Cameron, No-Man's Lands by Scott Huler (about retracing the journeys of Odysseus), an unbelievably detailed book on the making of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and a novel for which I've been asked to do a cover blurb. Usually I'll get into one of these at the expense of the others and read it through to the end before returning to the pile, but ...