Not sure what this was either.
But one thing did bother me: in the 17th century, unless I am very mistaken, they were unable to tell time with more than 15 minutes precision. So that bothered me.
Looking back at this I'm going to treat it as a teaser trailer for something much bigger.
All in all Lavie is a very good writer, and I like his work, maybe the bookstore will show up at some later point...