Random bookstore find and as usual this bears the risk of falling for an overly enthusiastic blurb on the back. What a waste of time. Forgettable characters which are so shallow that I had enormous differences to keep them apart from each other, a confusing and trite crime plot, an unsatisfying end.

I have no idea why this book was so popular. One explanation may be the language. As the setting is American I assumed it was an American author but I only read now that it was not originally published in English but is a translation from Romanian. Actually one of the most translated books in the world, which absolutely baffles me. Maybe it's really just that the English translation is so horrible (and also full of mistakes, e. g. the movie "Spaceball"). That may explain the bland style, the stiff dialogues and the similar voices. But as it does not make the plot more interesting I am not willing to give this bore another try in German to find out.