'The Stockholm Octavo is a masterful book, where a win for one character is a loss for another and where any kind of loss sparks a new round of plotting and intrigue. Read it, you'll be glad you did. If you like novels that work on many levels at once, read this stunning tessellation of a book, where fortune is the flip side of intrigue and where history is the flip side of chance. The Stockholm Octavo is a brilliant construction as much as an intriguing read. More than once I caught myself wondering: Who is Karen Engelmann and how did she do it?'
