Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: A Step Down

I found "The Pugilist At Rest" to be the best of his story collections, through and through. Cold Snap has some of my favorite stories, Cold Snap and Dynamite Hands, the middle of the book isn't as strong. This book is a let down from his first two. The opening story is strong, though it isn't as good as "As of July 6..." in The Pugilist, which has the same characters. But it has a great scene with Sonny Liston and some funny lines. Mouses is a good story. He read that at the reading I attended. Tarantula wasn't bad either. But in general, it gets a little too silly and Jones is not in the zone. This downfall of material in the late nineties is similar to Paul Auster, one of my other favorite writers. Hopefully one of them will produce something up to their standard in the near future.