·     opening scene. man hanging, suicide or murder? connection to Dumas Three Musketeers ... very well done. intriguing   ·     opening line. “The flash projected the outline of the hanged man onto the wall.” … a powerful visual image

·     inconsistent narrator. How can Boris Balkan, the knowledgeable narrator of the Dumas part of the story, continue to function as narrator after the April 1 meeting of the Club Dumas, when the story now switches totally to the other narrative, in which he is not involved and knows nothing?  ·     the narractor seems to be a minor character who interacts with Corso, so he is really telling the story from what Corso has told him. Why not have Corso narrate in 1st person? I wonder if Perez-Reverte thought of doing it that way.

·     unresolved issues. At the end of the book, there are major unresolved issues, which are not even acknowledged by Perez-Reverte. Who is the green-eyed girl? Why does she follow Corso and help him? What happens to Varo Borja, who has committed murders but is not (yet) sought by the police? Is this effective? I find it frustrating. Did I miss something?  ·     two stories. what seems like two unrelated stories intertwined and soon to become a single story ends up to be two separate stories. Perez-Reverte is playing with the reader, which angers me. I came to the end of the book with great anticipation that the threads would be tied up and then felt great disappointment when they were not.  ·     the forged page … At the end of the book, there is an implication that the Ceniza brothers did in fact forge a page, at Corso’s request, thus preventing Varo Borja from achieving his contact with the devil. This page was never shown or mentioned before, or if it was, I missed it. There must have been a better (more clear) way to present this, so perhaps the author wanted it to be unclear, maybe to be thought of long after finishing the book. But he leaves unexplained why Corso would have thought to have the page forged, and for what purpose, at the point in the story when this would have been done?  Another frustrating aspect of the ending to this book.

·     characterization of Lucas Corso … brilliantly presented over a long period of time …  a mercenary of the book world … talking fast … getting his hands dirty … a prodigious memory … canvas bag on shoulder (a recurring image) … steel rimmed glasses … untidy fringe of slightly graying hair … facial expressions of a rabbit (never got this … who knows what a rabbit’s facial expressions are like?) … THINGS NOT TOLD IN INITIAL DESCRIPTION: tall or short, lean or heavy, handsome or not.  …  bottomless pocket sof his coat … appears fragile yet solid as a concrete block … features are sharp and precise, full of angles … alert eyes … ready to express an innocence dangerous for anyone who was taken in by it … seemed slower and clumsier than he really was … looked vulnerable and defenseless … later, when you realized what had happened, it was too late to catch him … an oblique, distant laugh, with a hint of insolence … a laugh that lingers in the air after it stops …  attractive to women. … (Corso would) say something casually, as if he had no opinion on the matter, slyly goading you to react … (getting you) to give out more information (than you had intended). NOTE: the adverbs are the key words. Who says don’t use adverbs?  thin and hard like an emaciated wolf (ie, he is a hungry hunter) … a well-trained, patient wolf.  ·    but then, Corso’s actions not consistent with character. Corso has been beautifully presented as dangerous both mentally and physically, someone who is not what others see him to be. This is excellent, but I’m not sure the author has then had Corso act in a way consistent with these characteristics. He acts weak and unsure, he is as often manipulated as he is the manipulator.  ·     glasses and canvass bag as props. Corso often takes his glasses off. his vision is then limited to vague outlines. He is inseparable from his canvas bag. I found myself wondering what he would do if he were ever disconnected from either, and this does happen, on the bridge in Paris. However, the green-eyed girl retrieves both objects for him before too much damage is done. I think more could have been done with that, given all the build up. As with the resolution of major plot details, Perez-Reverte does not finish what he has started. Why?