Main character is a whining, self-absorbed, useless 30-something. Story slogs from beginning to end. Maybe a competent editor could have improved it? Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad books are jewels; this stand-alone effort is tar chips.

This was a boring book.

I am a huge Tana French fan and have read and enjoyed all her previous books. She's a terrific stylist and has a fine ear for dialogue. For notes on plot and character development, please check other reviews, because mine is brief: this novel is one long dark downward spiral — not only the most depressing book I have ever read, but one with deeply unpleasant characters, moral murkiness, obvious plot points which other reviews insist on calling surprising, and about a hundred pages which a thoughtful editor could have cut without a pang. To me, this feels like exploring the furthest reach of the unreliable narrator – to no purpose.

So many twists. By the end of the book it shows that just one little thing you do, that you think may be harmless, can turn into so much more and how it impacts others lives.

Please understand it is a rarity that I would write a bad review. It irritates me that so many reviewers review books based on the authors past books, so I won't do that here. For me a book has to develop interesting characters and a fast paced story that keeps me going. This book is really slow, and long. As I was swimming in mud at the beginning I was thinking she was writing "filler" to hit a page count because it was simply too long and slow. Even once the story picked up it would slow down again with "stuff". Too slow!