This is not a murder mystery or crime story. Like Tartt's other books this is about wearing the skin of a young protagonist who is experiencing something deeply disturbing and how this protagonist deals with it. I have to admit, that compared to the Secret History and The Gold Finch, this is her least grabbing book. But it offers something else I very much liked which kept me going: It consists mostly of female characters. And not the gender typical stereotypes, but a great variety of strong women, angry women, funny women, nasty women, poor women, rich women, women struggling with mental health, flirty women, disillusioned women of various classes and ethnicity. How rare and what a pleasure! There are men as well in the book, but they are not automatically the strong ones, they are refreshingly multi layered as well, in their fears, suffering, anger, and hopes. In a way this is a feminist book. And a book that shows awareness of class struggle and racism without lecturing. I was tempted to give it 4 stars, but because I didn't find the story as breath taking as the other two mentioned above and I felt the way she included and portrayed the character of a down syndrome kid (felt too much like the Hollywood cliché / idle, but good to the core simpleton) it is 3 stars (rather 3.5) from me. Still well worth a read if you're interested in character studies rather than crime.