City of Glass, by Paul Auster

After a strange phone call in the middle of the night, Quinn, an author of detective stories, becomes enmeshed in a case more puzzling than any he might have written. Composed with hallucinatory clarity, City of Glass combines dark humor with Hitchcock-like suspense.

The Washington Post Book World called it a “post-existential private eye [story]. . . . It’s as if Kafka has gotten hooked on the gumshoe game and penned his own ever-spiraling version.”

Our meeting location is Panera in Porter Square -- usually downstairs.