2007-08-24 Entertaining.

This is my first foray into Bernie Rhodenbarr's world, and the experience was a pleasant one. It's a light-hearted romp and a genuinely humourous protagonist - almost as if Wodehouse's Jeeves went cat-burgling!

In terms of content, the characters were all fine, the settings were well described, and the initial plot was set up well. My only misgiving was that the plot wasn't as well structured as it could have been. The candidates for whodunnit didn't all show up until half way through, and then they tend to show up all together. Secondly, while Rhodenbarr's investigations are logical enough, they lacked that little bit of logic that made them entirely believable. In short, I think that Rhodenbarr leaps to the right result more out of chance than logical reasoning.

Notwithstanding that, it's a capable enough thriller that can be read in a couple of hours. I enjoyed it and would read more of Block's work.