I am pretty biased, because I really loved Devil in the White City. I think it's unlikely that anything could live up to that one. The strange thing is, that while a lot of things happened in this book I didn't really feel like anything got resolved or moved forward. It was an interesting concept of an American family living in Berlin at a very difficult time, but I didn't feel like any of the people involved were changed by the experience. It was an insider's view of the time period, but everyone seemed to be pretty much the same at the end as they were at the beginning. I wanted to know how the experience impacted them and changed their lives. The approach felt very detached, which worked in Devil in the White City, but didn't draw me in here. I didn't really feel an emotional connection.