Very enjoyable but not as good as The Calculating Stars. This one feels rushed in many ways. The number of times, for example, that Elma talks about how perfect her husband is is tiring. He’s a pretty two dimensional character if I’m being honest. Parker is far more interesting and becomes even more so in this book. It is nitpicking, I know, but a thesaurus would’ve been handy when the urge to use the word “snort” came up.

That said, I really enjoyed this book and, for its faults, really couldn’t put it down. There was a lot of subtlety to it, some of which goes unanswered until the authors notes at the ends. One in particular, relating to cryptography, never gets answered and may not be obvious to anyone who doesn’t have experience with ciphers. So it was fun little nugget left for those of us who do. That kind of attention to detail is what makes this and The Calculating Stars so great.

I look forward to reading the third installment.