On the surface, this book is a mystery for murder, but beneath the many layers of plot, motive, red herrings, and need of justice this book is a journey for the hero, one in which he discovers a little hero in himself despite some heartbreaking circumstance. I fell in love with Timothy Wilde, the narrator of the novel. Cut raw in bland honesty, he came away from the ugliness and beauty of 1849 New York with humility and forgiveness. The characters around him drawn equally in weight only added to his characterization, especially his brother, Val, a foil in every way. So, when the book showed Val's softer side, shock knocked me as hard as it did Timothy.
Setting the characters aside, the setting breathed authenticity through every sense even the sixth one. The scene opening up to the murders and graves are especially heartbreaking without pestering a reader with gruesome images that linger, no Faye left me with something deeper probing my very humanity about the wrongness in murder.
Setting the beautiful descriptives aside, and recalling the mystery, Wilde revealed the culprit(s) in a twisted probable scenario that lead to shocking, complicated truths. I highly recommend this book to mystery lovers, but also to those who enjoy a character driven novel bent upon truth and justice and not abstractly.
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