JSON DID IT.
I was writing about how I appreciated the instructions but was sad to say that I failed and then I had a lightning bolt on the json stuff and I DID IT.
If you're curious (and because I already typed this), I went with option two first since it seemed more basic. I created a new library with copied structure so the virtual libs and view manager details carried over. I then copied over a number of books with various last mod dates including the erroneous highlighted book. Happily, in the new library these books sorted from the top - however, looking closer, they all had the same last mod date, 11/6 (today), from copying them over. So not a fix for this
specific problem.
SOLUTION: I ended up just deleting the entire "library_view books view state" section you indicated in the json file and replacing the original file and that did it. I checked it multiple times after closing out in different VLs with different sorts going on and it sorted per view manager each time. Interesting however is that, for just a moment, I see that book it was reverting to in the book details pane before view manager overrides it. Weird.
But it's fixed and I learned some things about creating new libraries and json, so thank you very much for your assistance.
