An excellent extension of the Lije Bailey stories, easily the most enjoyable of the three (so far?) but for the added chapter almost clumsily tieing the series in to the Foundation/Empire timeline.

The beauty of these novels is the multiple layers at which you can view them. At it's simplest form of detective fiction it is a wonderful read but as you layer on the philosphy and cultural studies aspects it grows it to much more.

As I finish each Asimov work I am incredibly sad, it seems like there was never anybody who could write this genre as well as he did and quite possibly nobody who ever will. I shall just have to cherish the comparitively few novels (to the rest of published fiction) he did write.