It's a puzzlehunt drama, with the emphasis on the drama. The hunt's designer says "And the true prize, the jewel at the end of the journey, is the discovery of the self." I kept trying to emphasize the puzzlehunt; but this book ain't Winston Breen.
The story's a mystery; this book report contains, uh, converse-spoilers. That is, I kept reading the book in puzzlehunt-mode and thus anticipated things that don't happen. I guess they're minor? (If you were hoping for a plot synopsis or discussion of the (interesting!) characters, probably you want someone else's review. If you're reading my blog, I assume you're here for puzzly stuff.)
Our protagonist reads a note from the puzzlehunt designer, noting there are typos. I, of course, reached for a pencil and a piece of scratch paper to jot down the typos to see if they spelled out a secret message. They do! You think that's a spoiler, but: Nobody in the book ever notices. The secret message is an easter egg for the reader.
So that got me thinking about other places the puzzlehunt designer might leave overlooked easter eggs. There's a coded message made of dingbats: ☥☈⚰…many symbols…♀♛. I wondered about the choice of the [spoiler redacted] and [spoiler redacted]: those symbols seemed like they could relate to the plot. I wondered what meaning the puzzlehunt designer assigned them in the code. But when I read the decoded message, it mostly but didn't quite match up to the coded message. Maybe some editor decided to to re-word the coded message but then didn't go back to insert a couple of new dingbats? Anyhow, I gave up on that one.
At one point, a secret message says "Seek well," a reasonable phrase to use in instructions to puzzlehunters. The main characters really fixate on the phrase. I wondered: is this an "easter egg" from the author to readers that we should be on the lookout for a sequel? It's been years since this book was published, and no sequel has appeared. I think I was once again barking up the wrong tree.
It's a fun book. I probably would have had more fun if I hadn't hared off chasing down mirage "easter eggs" though. (But maybe not? I am kinda wired for that?)
BTW, if you "view source" on the blog post version of this here post, below you'll see a kinda major spoiler: my notes on the dingbat message. If you want a head start on analyzing and don't want to figure out how to enter weird characters like ☈, it could come in handy. (I'm guessing "you" are me, five years later.)
