I feel like the second epilogue (as it's a book within a book) sums up my frustrations, which are easy to see once pointed out to the reader.

As a story, it's rather enjoyable. It's engaging and keeps the audience involved, but as a mystery? It seems a bit off, and perhaps that's the goal. The hints are really obfuscated to the point of being absurd, though much of it requires that you recognise what they want you to recognise in specific ways. In particular, it requires recognising that the quietly acknowledged villain of the book is a woman but is written in such a way that it's easier to read her as a man.

Even though I was following the desired goal of recognising a clue ("hiding blood within a pool of blood"), it was one that I just couldn't piece together because I hadn't really caught on that I was supposed to read someone as being a woman when they weren't presented in ways that made it possible (or even logical because it's often hard for me to read certain things as being gendered in a specific manner).

As a story, I like it. As a mystery, I feel it could've been done better.