Eh. My library pinged me saying that this book was ready for me but I have no memory of requesting it.

Ah hah okay, Tim Pratt listed it in a "things I've read recently" Patreon post.

death is everywhere in Cass Neary's world. an aging punk with issues and bad habits, she has a gift for staying alive anywhere, in any circumstances, though it's not in itself a goal exactly, just a side effect of her single-mindedness. except that suddenly there's a complication, the long lost Quinn, and he has only a few rules, but his are not negotiable. so at long last she considers changing. in search of Quinn Cass comes across an ancient book of symbols, and then a damaged girl who thinks code is the answer to everything, and then people who've come into contact with the book start dying. this carries Cass from Iceland, to London, to Sweden, on the trail of white supremacists and the weight of her own past. as usual, the case is pretty flimsy, leads and characters get abandoned along the way, but this is true to Cass's drug-fueled inclinations and a certain tendency for chaos to follow her home. meanwhile as always the writing is perfect, hard to the core but true to the subject matter, and Cass is a character that gets under the reader's skin, however much she is indifferent to her reception. ( )

I was happy to stumble on this in the library recently. I've been reading the series for longer than I can remember. Elizabeth Hand doesn't disappoint in this book to continue the saga of Cass. ( )

This is the fourth book to feature Liz Hand's Cass Neary, and it's a solid installment in one of my favorite mystery series. Cass is an aging junkie, and one-time star photographer, who barely survived the heydey of punk-era New York City and she keeps finding herself embroiled in mysteries that drag her through the underbelly of the world. The "cases," if that's how you want to classify them, usually involve art in some way, and in Lamps and Banners the object is a lost, possibly apocryphal book. But the object is almost beside the point. What grabs the reader here is Hand's writing; Cass's voice and point of view. All of it is a seedy wonder. Highly recommended. ( )

I really loved Hand's novel Curious Toys but not so much this one. Half way through I was good but then it all feel apart for me. It gets way too convoluted - a secret mystical book written by Aristotle, dart in the eyeball murders, a drug addled detective searching for the book and also a kidnapped woman on an isolated island where people with deep dark secrets always keep their doors unlocked so you can stroll right in. Also, tie in white supremacy and symbols that lead to mind control. Too, too much. ( )