I read this book after a friend whose opinion I greatly respect had already told me it was a disappointment to her. I liked it a little better than that, but not a lot better. It seems there is some sort of genre of books about ordinary guy caught up in some sort of deep mystery concerning Ancient Objects, Hot Women and Research. The researcha gnel always appeals to me, and some of the ancient stuff, and I’m sort of “eh” on the hot women angle, but the stories are usually interesting enough. This one was pretty good.

It might have been better if I hadn’t been reading a proof copy and had had illustrations of all the alchemical -- I hope I’m not giving away too much here -- objects rather than just a blank box with “TK Illustration” written in them. At the end of it all though, you don’t quite have the sufficiently zing-y wrap up to make it all come together and think “man I read a good book.” I liked the charachters, liked the story, enjoyd it while I was reading it, but I’ve read better versions of the same general plot and don’t think I’ll think about this book much after it’s faded from recent memory.