I had never heard of Arturo Perez-Reverte until a couple of weeks ago when my friend Beth suggested I would probably love his books. So, in my typical compulsive fashion, I ran out that night and bought a copy of The Club Dumas, which happened to be the only one of his books that evil megastore Barnes and Noble had in stock.

I'm glad I grabbed it. The Club Dumas is an engaging noir mystery, set in a world of old books, secret societies, and hints of mysticism. It's a well-written but infinitely more approachable Foucault's Pendulum, though with less meat. Literary references abound (primarily to Dumas' The Three Musketeers) but recognizing them is not a prerequisite for enjoying the story (lord knows I didn't recognize them — I remember nothing of Dumas).

I had a little bit of trouble following the plot in the first third of the novel, probably because it requires slightly more focused attention than I was able to give it, but I still enjoyed the texture of the prose, and I was satisfied with the way the threads were tied up at the end. I liked this much more than The Da Vinci Code and The Rule of Four, but not enough to rate it five stars. I'm looking forward to reading another of his books.