Warning: Spoilers ahead.

My book rating: 3.5 stars

This book is all about the frightful inhumanities that lurk beneath the so-called normal humans we encounter every day. This entire book pays homage to the art of observation. The setting and backgrounds have been described in much detail that the entire village of Melville is vividly brought to life in the reader’s mind. Every character: from the schizophrenic mother to her teenage daughter; the headmaster and his demure, devoted wife and their autistic, adolescent son; the upstanding doctor and his intense, introverted wife with a tragic past and his newly married sister and happy-go-lucky brother-in-law, have all been described in a matter-of-fact yet exciting manner.

The headmaster’s family never stays in one place for too long and seem to leave various tragedies and intriguing incidents in their wake- both in the near and distant pasts. Life has a funny way of bringing people together who remember some of them from a seemingly inconsequential yet crucial incident from the past.

The reader is made known of a murder having happened from page one. But the mystery of who died and why is the carrot at the end of the stick. The reader is kept guessing as the story slowly unravels. The suspicions are heavily cast on the headmaster, and the case seems to build up strongly against him. But in the end, there is a delicious twist.

Karma is real. What goes around comes around. Maybe not in the ways we expect, but our deeds and their consequences sure have a way of catching up with us. Pick up this book and let it surprise you.