There’s a lot of good ideas in this book but I can’t get any traction with it. There’s a complex plot that seems to involve some mysterious figure getting ordinary people to do bad things in pursuit of what seems to be a serial killer who has now grown old and lost his mind to Alzheimer’s. There’s early violence, a dogged but damaged detective with a traumatic past, constant movement along timelines and shifting in points of view, all of which serve to cast more shadow than light, deepening the mystery and amping up the foreboding.

My problem is that it all seems a little too mechanical. I’m not attached to any of the people. The bits that should get me inside the detectives head read more like notes on her motivation for use by the actress who’ll play her in the TV version than like real thoughts. I don’t believe in or care about these people, so I’m left with a complex piece of clockwork.