content: I agree with an earlier reviewer, that none of these characters are very likable. This was my first experience with Ian Rankin, after being told many times that I would love his writing [guess I should have started with a John Rebus story]. I never got into any of the characters, did not believe them or their motivations, and really struggled to care what happened to them. Really, the most interesting character is the woman who gets killed in the opening chapter. Finally, just gave up after about 150 pages, flipped to the back and read the last few chapters and the "twist" was what I expected. Blah.