Paul Bryers weaves an engrossing story around the return of a successful Hollywood filmmaker (Adam Epstein) to Berlin - where he had been born in the horrific final days of WWII. It is now the late 1990s and a murky,unsettling and slightly sinister post-reunification Berlin serves as the background to a story of ambiguous parentage and personal redemption. A growing sense of menace (neo-Nazi activity flourishes, Adam is drawn into what appears to be an intricate web of deceit...) and the cooly ironic tone of the (Merlin-like)narrator combine to make this an above average 'literary' novel with thriller overtones.

I was disappointed in this book. The plot was so vague and slow-moving I wondered if the author was making it up as he went along. For a murder investigation, there is little investigating going on, maybe because the British author didn't know (or didn't research) U.S. procedure. There is way too much stumbling around in the snow and fog contemplating life and death and sexual fantasies that don't get anywhere. A major problem is the author cannot seem to get American dialogue right. He makes it difficult for both himself and the reader by writing in the third person and constantly switching the point of view between English, American and Native American/Indian characters. The result is people living on the reservation sometimes sound like they're in a London drawing room, sometimes like a bad cowboy movie. The omniscient point of view is particularly confusing because of the language difference. Do you use British English for the thoughts of an American character? It becomes very distracting. The sex seems to have been put in just to have a few sex scenes; it is neither necessary nor relevant. There is practically no action, and none of the characters come across as convincing. The ending seems like an afterthought. I expected much more. This author was compared to Stephen King, but Stephen King lives and works in Maine and knows what he's talking about. Write about what you know, or know about what you write!

An odd book that presents an interesting idea which the author tries to develop without success. Most of the book is spent exploring the characters' personal lives but without in any way relating them to the plot or subject matter of the book, so that we're left feeling that the author just let his mind wander. Unfortunately, the characters are flat and uninteresting, so their prolonged contemplations of their sexual and family problems, which have no bearing whatsoever on the subject or plot of the book, leave the reader bored and baffled. The mystery with which we're initially presented, involving Native American beliefs, the desecration of sacred sites, etc., is interesting and engaging but soon lost amid these meanderings and comes to seem a mere aside. The denoument of this mystery has no relation to anything that preceeds it and leaves the reader even more deflated. This book needed a sharp-witted editor to lead the author back to his subject matter. Disappointing.

It was fairly interesting, and I liked it despite its portrayal of Maine (the state closest to here) being deep in the dark woods, buffeted by the harsh sea; Maine is actually fairly civilized, but you wouldn't know that if this book was your only window into the state. A lot of authors have oddly romanticized views of life in northern New England, so I guess if you have to forgive one, you have to forgive them all.

What's harder to overlook was the strange reference to one of the protagonists and a friend - both Maine natives- cooking grits over an open flame. Since it was presented in a matter of fact, people there do it every day, tone it makes me wonder if the London born author learned about the US from watching westerns.

Anyway, the story is about a murdered woman, her sister and daughter, and the state cop investigating it. It's also about bears, the Souriquois, and settlers who have been dead for 300 years. It didn't have as much to do with the supernatural as the book jacket would have you believe, but it was a solid story that integrates the varying themes quite well.