The blurb for this novel talks about one of the main characters being an eccentric aunt. This can go one of two ways. Get it right and you have all sorts of fun and games with eccentricity. Get it wrong though and everything falls flat on its face, and not in a 'slipped on a banana skin' sort of way. Fortunately, from the awards garnered by this book, the former seems to be the case here. Shame about the cover though.