Clay Jannon is an out-of-work web designer struggling to find a new job and rapidly decreasing his list of requirements for what type of job he will settle for when he comes across a help wanted sign in an obscure out of the way bookstore. He quickly discovers that his new job is quite strange. Very few customers come to the store, and most of those come to check out a book from the waybacklist, books in code that often require the scaling of a sliding ladder to retrieve and that he is not supposed to peruse himself. For he customer, he is to keep a detailed entry with a description of the customer, day and time, and book purchased or checked out. In order to impress a girl, he creates a 3D computer model of the bookstore, enlists the help of his special effects roommate in duplicating a logbook, and takes the original logbook to Google to input the data of the order books in the waybacklist are checked out. The longest path through the books that is taken results in the appearance of a face on the computer screen, and Clay soon discovers that the secrets he has been trying to uncover extend far beyond the bookstore where he is employed.
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Sloan is tale that juxtaposes the modern world with the medieval one, the technological power of Google with a cryptographic puzzle from the middle ages. Throw in a secret cult, friendship, a quest to help Penumbra, and the pursuit of immortality; and the result is an intriguing tale that I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend.
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