Engaging - engrossing - excellent.

I unintentionally read Book of the Dead first, so a few points and events in that book were a bit mysterious to me, but it by no means overshadowed my enjoyment of reading them, reading them out of order. I finished this book in just a few days, it's very fast paced, and from the start, I was engrossed in the story of Diogenes Pendergast's ultimate crime, and his brother Aloysius' attempts at thwarting him.