I really like this book and I don't think I can praise it enough - it truly felt like I was watching a detective show about a murder on tv. This book is up there with some of my favourite books.
The book is longer than I expected and did take me a little while to get through but it was worth it. It was extremely fast paced from the beginning. The whole time it kept me guessing and trying to work it out (I got it completely wrong by ruling out the murderer!)
I like the trans representation in the book and I definitely wasn't expecting it. It felt quite natural and overall was handled very well - however there was one paragraph where Archer revealed Klara's deadname to a colleague. This paragraph wasn't necessary and felt very uncomfortable for me, it showed a lack of understanding around trans issues that had otherwise been handled quite well throughout. Klara doesn't play a huge role as a character (with her trans identity being even less relevant) but it's nice to see trans representation in a book as a side detail that's not massively focused on.
The books very well thought out and is quite clear. Its a very complex story line with lots of characters, murders, perspectives and storylines all running at once. Despite this I don't think I ever felt lost or didn't understand. The number of characters was handled very well. There must be well over 30 characters however I felt like I knew who each one was and could understand their individual roles in the story. I did get a little confused with the different police staff as to who was connected to who and who didn't like who and who had what role however I think this was because there were a lot of police staff introduced all at once and many of them only had small roles with very little or no backstory mentioned. However it didn't take long to work out who the important police officers where.
Overall the book was very good and handled very well. It's easy to follow despite its complex story lines and I really felt like I got to know each character.
The book is longer than I expected and did take me a little while to get through but it was worth it. It was extremely fast paced from the beginning. The whole time it kept me guessing and trying to work it out (I got it completely wrong by ruling out the murderer!)
I like the trans representation in the book and I definitely wasn't expecting it. It felt quite natural and overall was handled very well - however there was one paragraph where Archer revealed Klara's deadname to a colleague. This paragraph wasn't necessary and felt very uncomfortable for me, it showed a lack of understanding around trans issues that had otherwise been handled quite well throughout. Klara doesn't play a huge role as a character (with her trans identity being even less relevant) but it's nice to see trans representation in a book as a side detail that's not massively focused on.
The books very well thought out and is quite clear. Its a very complex story line with lots of characters, murders, perspectives and storylines all running at once. Despite this I don't think I ever felt lost or didn't understand. The number of characters was handled very well. There must be well over 30 characters however I felt like I knew who each one was and could understand their individual roles in the story. I did get a little confused with the different police staff as to who was connected to who and who didn't like who and who had what role however I think this was because there were a lot of police staff introduced all at once and many of them only had small roles with very little or no backstory mentioned. However it didn't take long to work out who the important police officers where.
Overall the book was very good and handled very well. It's easy to follow despite its complex story lines and I really felt like I got to know each character.