The book started well with an interesting and sympathetic main character. Norton gave me the background information I needed while keeping the narrative moving forward. If you have read other Norton stories you’ll guess the solution to the central mystery early on but that doesn’t detract from the book. However once our hero teams up with his allies and ‘escapes’ the narrative became formulaic and overlong. So my original rating of 4 was down rated to 2.5 due to the last third of the book.