This was a difficult book to rate. 
 On the one hand, the premise was great, the plot was a bit slow but well-paced, and the characters were complex and well-written. 
 I guess I'm just used to a typical murder mystery novel, where you actually receive a proper ending. In this novel, you have two basic mysteries (a murder of a young girl in present day, the other being events that happened to the main character in the 80's), and only ONE gets solved. I don't know... it just struck me as strange. 
 However, French's writing was beautiful, and it was an interesting twist to the traditional murder mystery... it just fell a bit flat for me.