Roy Harley Lewis

Perhaps the best of the series. Gone are the irritating character traits of the lead character (such as his excessive misogyny), and the story itself is well plotted and executed.

This fine product, however, is disappointing to those of us who were attracted to the series due to the conceit that the main character is a bookman, and thus that the stories will in some way involve some angle of his trade. There is none of that here. This is not the first such series that I have seen peter out. Apparently there are only so many tales to be told about book-related murders and such, before the author retreats to more traditional themes.

My favorite line from the book: "he crashed into me with the primeval power of a Dr. Who monster."… (meer)

In some ways the strongest of the first four efforts by this author, but ultimately a disappointment. As a rule I am not attracted to the mystery/thriller genre, but am attempting to slog through this series because ostensibly they center on booksellers (the Matthew Coll series) or librarians (the present volume). But after the first few pages, the fact that the protagonist is a librarian, and that the stolen items were ancient Arabic manuscripts, become wholly irrelevant, and are not seriously mentioned again.

I could set that aside and attempt to enjoy the adventure itself, except inevitably for this author the male lead is a boor when it comes to women. In the present story, despite having a fiance at home, he proposes marriage to another woman he has known for only a few days, convincing her to break ties and obligations in her own life, only to then change his mind and leave her behind because he decides, in the end, that the first woman would be more appropriate. Basically, he doesn't deserve any woman. Maybe it reflects the time in which he wrote, or the genre itself, but I find his lack of moral backbone extremely unappealing.… (meer)

I continue to have problems with the main character. Matt Coll is a chauvinist, and in this book reveals himself to be mildly antigay. Besides being unlikeable, for someone who is supposed to have considerable training and experience as a former British intelligence officer, he seems remarkably poor in a fight, and is constantly leaping to the wrong conclusions.

Although there are genuine surprises and engaging moments, the author is unable to portray human motivations with any subtlety or truth. In general, he is a better plotter than writer (something I've also said about Dan Brown, but Lewis makes Brown look like a Dickens in comparison).… (meer)

Second in a series. Considerably better than the first outing, but a significant problem remains in that the lead character, bookseller Matthew Coll, is largely unsympathetic as a protagonist. He is boorish when it comes to women, insensitive about using friends for short term advantage, and so enamored of his baseless assumptions that he misses obvious facts. The mystery in the present volume is reasonably engaging, but we root less than Coll (and I hate the name) than find him annoying.

Stylistically, the author seems to be confused about the genre of his book; for the most part it is written from the view of Coll, but following him as it happens; twice in the book Coll breaks to address the reader, which makes it an altogether different kind of book. Is it his own account of his adventures, or are we watching as it unfolds?

Finally, it is charming as they speak of photostatic copies as the cutting edge of technology. How many old time mysteries would never have happened if they had had cell phones?… (meer)