An unexpected pleasure which I might’ve appreciated more with a little preparation, so I’m targeting this review toward people who know nothing about this book series.

The most important thing to know ahead of time is: whatever expectations you might have, let them go because this will be both more and less. Yeah, there’s a murder mystery, and an interesting (VERY CONVOLUTED) side plot, but those feel incidental. The bulk of the story, as I saw it, is just a pretty decent fella living a fairly ordinary life, treating people with respect and kindness and compassion, and for the most part surrounding himself with similarly caring loved ones. As other reviewers have noted, what makes this book is the relationships. And they’re lovely. Mature. Strong. Low-drama. Some people might find a book like this boring; I found it refreshing even with the pages-long digressions into college scheduling conflicts. It felt like life.

Proofreading was appalling, worst I’ve seen in years. The occasional mystery elements required Golden Gate-level suspension of disbelief. Tangents galore, little side stories that get abandoned—again, much like life. And the Edith Warner snippets felt like afterthoughts, tacked on in postproduction because oops we should probably connect somehow to the book title. Even so I really enjoyed it, am glad to have read it. Would love to pick up another one in the series, but (sigh) I first need to become more tolerant of misprints.