After reading Norman's The Bird Artist, I was amazed, yet doubtful he could repeat the brilliance. Well, in the Museum Guard, he does. It takes seemingly unconnected bits of history, art, and plot and blends them togethor to form one of the most memorable books I've read in a long time. His genius takes the trials of everday people and makes the reader interested, if not obsessed with the strange twists and turns this imaginative, original plot takes. Don't read this book if you seek a story about right and wrong, a bad guy and a good guy. Norman is too brilliant to write a story like that.