When you open the covers of a Bantock book, you enter a place unlike any other literary wold you've encountered... [This is] his most passionate yet.

I just didn't get it.....it started out much better than a few of the others, but then I got very confused at the end..... ( )

I was a little bit disappointed in this book. The collage that develops throughout the book was (in my opinion) somewhat overworked, until the painting of a bridge which was the starting point of the work virtually disappears. The process of the creation of the work is interesting, but it is given so much weight that the story, like the bridge, seems to collapse beneath it. The "game" or puzzle left for the protagonist by his grandfather is visually wonderful but again not really compelling as a story. The woman who makes a cameo appearance wanders off again, and so did I. ( )

Unusual and interesting. ( )

Years ago, I read Bantock’s Griffin and Sabine tetralogy and was thoroughly enchanted by their long-distance courtship. The drawings and postcards and letters provided an air of mystery and a sense of peeking into the private lives of Griffin and Sabine. I lost touch with Bantock, until I came across this volume at a used book sale.

I read it in one sitting – interrupted only by a steaming bowl of Southwestern Stew my wife made last weekend. The Spanish connection was mildly eerie.

This book tells the story of Armin Hurt who travels to Rondo, Spain to dispose of his grandfather’s house, which he inherited on the old man’s death. He was close to his grandfather, but when Armin’s family moved to Chicago, they lost touch. Grandfather put a game inside the house with clues, so Armin could, in the words of Rafael’s will, “find his belonging.”

Enchanting, absorbing, full of surprises and neat tricks of the mind, spirit, and body. Bantock has at least two other books, and I must find them. Five stars

--Jim, 12/27/08 ( )