Star Wars; Scoundrels!

I just finished reading Star Wars: Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn, it is a good caper story.  Unfortunately a lot of the surprises are not that exciting and are only surprising because the reader is kept in the dark but not the bad guys.  The story really feels stretched out and the book could have easily been 100 pages shorter.  As it is the book is 60 pages shorter than it appears as there are two "preview" stories to get you to read other Star Wars books.  I guess my real problem with the story is we know how it will turn out.  The book says on the back cover the story happens right after the first Star Wars movie but before Empire so everything has to end back where everything was before the next movie.  I much prefer the shared universe books before set movie history or after.  Though when it is well done, I do enjoy a good Han Solo story.  Read the book if you like it is not horrible just not that incredible.