A friend from work downsized her bookshelves and has given me bagsful. I am registering for future release.

Welcome to BookCrossing!

Please make a journal entry to let me know that this book has been caught so I know that it has found a good home with you. If you are new to BookCrossing, when you join please indicate that you were referred by tobysrus. I hope that you enjoy the book. You can make another journal entry with your comments when you are done reading.

Then, whenever you are ready to send it on its way, make a journal entry if you are giving or sending this book to a known person, or a release note if you are leaving it “in the wild” again for anyone to catch. Then watch its journey. You’ll be alerted by e-mail each time someone makes another journal entry. And it’s confidential (you are known only by your screen name and no one is ever given your e-mail address), free, and spam-free.

I hope that you will enjoy the BookCrossing experience!

PS And if you find yourself liking BookCrossing, Boston has an active group of BookCrossers who meet monthly; the second Tuesday of the month at Panera Bread (1288 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge - Harvard Square, 2nd floor) 7 PM.

I claimed this one at the meetup today; looks intriguing!

Later: Very lively story, incorporating narrator/main-character Lionel's Tourette's syndrome as part-disability, part-superpower (people tend to underestimate him because of it). The story opens with Lionel ("If I were a Dick Tracy villain, I'd be Mumbles") on a stakeout with Gilbert, watching out for their boss Frank Minna as he meets with a mysterious character. When Frank winds up dead, after a slow-motion pursuit with unnerving sounds from the wire Frank was wearing (this highlights the tone of the story, which is "detective/crime story that's not even remotely glamorous"), Lionel is determined to find out who killed him.

So far, so good - but we come to find out that the "detective agency" Lionel works for is a shabby affair, thinly disguised as a car service, and consisting of Lionel and three other childhood companions from the local orphanage, who'd been drafted into grunt-work by Frank while they were still in their early teens. They've grown up, but are still "Minna's Men", with varying degrees of discontent...

The story features a variety of criminal figures, from the very low-end ones (including Lionel and co., whose legwork often involved shady activities even if they didn't realize it at the time) to higher-ups with considerable clout. Then there's the local Zen temple, which... um, fits into a typical crime story how, exactly? {wry grin}

Lionel does pretty well managing his syndrome, even when it forces him to rhythmically touch a specific number of people or shout out garbled versions of the last words he or they have said. His back-story has melancholy notes: his name is very unusual, and he's in the habit of phoning the two or three similarly-named folks in the NYC phone book in vague hopes of finding family, but he can't explain himself, and over the years has turned into an annual nuisance-caller. He seems like a pretty upright guy, if a bit naive (though not as naive as most other people assume he is), and while he survives the story when other characters don't, he doesn't get as sweet a resolution as I'd have liked.

Most of the story takes place in the city, but near the climax Lionel goes in pursuit of a suspect and finds himself driving right out of the city limits and into Connecticut - farther than he's ever been before - and then on to Boston and up into Maine! Since this route is quite familiar to me I found myself rather charmed by the whole thing, including Lionel's astonishment when he reaches his destination on the Maine coast and sees the ocean for the first time...

Fast-moving, funny, with a puzzle that's just tricky enough to pique the armchair detective but not ridiculously convoluted. Good read!

[There's a TV Tropes page on the novel with some entertaining tidbits.]

I left this book in the Little Free Library at around 4; hope the finder enjoys it!

*** Released as part of the 2016 Keep Them Moving release challenge. ***

*** Released as part of the 2016 You're Such an Animal release challenge, for the embedded "rook" in the title. ***