This is an old novella by Tim Powers. I liked it. It recently showed up in a two-novella conglomeration with The Skies Discrowned. I'd already read that novella, and hadn't liked it. So it was a gamble to pick up this conglomeration. But I'm glad I did.
Anyhow, Epitaph in Rust is a fun swashbuckly noirish post-apocalypse political thriller. Reading this, I heard echoes of Dinner at Deviant's Palace, but I suppose that really Dinner... contained echoes of this earlier work. It's a fun bit of fluff.
Tags: book