The novel is about young banker Edward Wozny, who is sent by his firm to organize a mysterious client's library of rare books.

He discovers the client may own a unique fourteenth-century codex, long thought to be a hoax by medieval scholars.

In The New York Times Book Review, critic Polly Shulman wrote, "A little more than halfway through 'Codex,' an investment banker named Edward Wozny comes upon a bookcase full of 'books about books — bibliographies of obscure literary figures, catalogs of long-dispersed scriptoria, histories of printing and publishing and bindings and typefaces.'

However, 'Codex' has a better claim than most novels to a spot there — and not just because its title means, as a snooty scholar tells Edward, 'what someone like you would call a book.'

'Codex' takes its place on the shelf of self-referential, bibliophilic page turners like 'The Name of the Rose,' 'Possession' and 'A Case of Curiosities,' and it's as entertaining as any of them.