Great fun. If I have a quibble, it's with Mitchell's divagations into the supernatural. It's a bit Marvel Universe, as is his recycling of characters between books as ancestors, descendants or immortals.

You can see the nature of the ending coming a mile away; he forces it on himself by having his characters mingle with the illustrious dead (or Dead).

Still, he's a lively, stylish writer who seems never to do the same thing twice.