The first twenty pages are disorienting, and the end isn’t perfect, but everything in between is revelatory.

Dondi, the narrator, writes pleasing sentences. There’s something hard boiled in the tone. Flashes of magic give the book a speculative undertone, and a wide cast of minor characters keep the action fresh.

I’m not sure how the story would hold up to a second reading, but I imagine I missed plenty. I reveled in the inside jokes: from-one-writer-to-another kind of winks and nods, and I’m confident those same jokes would at least not distract the common reader.

I’ll be reading more Mansbach for sure.