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Oct 11, 2014gvenkatesh rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
While this novel can be read as just a mystery with some wincing moments, it is much more than that. Good mystery novels involve moral dilemmas. Boring ones pit pure evil against pure innocence. This does neither. There are no typical heroes or villains here and yet there is tragedy. Civilized humans, while they may entertain thoughts derived from baser instincts, exert self control on not acting on such thoughts either because of a sense of morality or because of social convention both of which threaten negative consequences. Typical villains eschew this self-control almost entirely to become socio- or psycho-paths while the heroes stay within the bounds. This novel is based on a nuanced premise of a set of characters that have moved that needle of self control, each in their own way, just enough to discomfort most readers' sense of right and wrong but not necessarily enough to think of them as heroes or villains. The novel plays with a reader's perception and need to resolve a character one way or another, just as good music does with alternating dissonance and consonance to build and release tension and thus hold interest. And it does so masterfully with each character. The mix of such characters makes for a powerful, even if, often disquieting or infuriating novel. A very good literary effort that does what good novels do, stimulate and force readers to examine some basic assumptions. In this case, the disquieting thought that, in a civilized society, we depend heavily on the self-control of others to place our trust necessary for day to day functioning, and yet that self-control can be quite fragile in reality.