The Grand Complication

Allen Kurzweil

A suspense novel, this book is full of eccentrics and literary/historical curiosities. Alexander Short is a quirky reference librarian; Henry Jesson is an extremely eccentric, extremely wealthy bibliophile who lures, then hires, Short to help solve a mystery. Jesson is the owner of a mysterious cabinet of drawers, each drawer of which is filled with items from the life of an eighteenth century inventory. One of the drawers is empty. Jesson commissions Short to find out what that drawer once held and recover it to complete the cabinet. An intellectual mystery, Kurzweil fills this book with bizarre lifestyles, obscure linguistics, arcane bibliophilia and a bunch of other peculiarities. You gotta like that kind of stuff to enjoy this one, but if you do, it's a fine read. I enjoyed it.