This starts off in the present, but quickly flashes back fifty years to cover a period around the start of WW2 in a small American farming town, where a murderer is killing young girls.

I thought this was going to be a thriller and maybe it does turn out that way but it's taken me about two months to get about 20% of the way through it and it just feels dull. It's one of those books where I find my attention wandering; realise that I've missed a bit; determine to pay attention, and then find thirty seconds later that I've lost it again. Although the story is ostensibly about a serial killer, that felt incidental to the writing, which seemed more focused on establishing the feel of the period (which I did't think it was particularly compelling).

It reminded me a bit in feel of A Painted House but at least I finished that one: this I'm admitting defeat with now, otherwise it'll take me all year.

It doesn't count as a completed book but I'm sticking it in the list so that I don't accidentally re-read it or pick something else by this author.

Gave up : 16-Jul-2010 (audiobook)