I had it solved by chapter four. I was very pleased about this. I may have announced it out loud, with confidence. Boy, was I wrong... good thing investigating is not my day job! The puzzle isn't even the part that got me, though. It's the setting. Not the case, the city behind it. This was clearly written by a person who knows the city on foot rather than off a map, and it comes through in all the small stuff around the actual plot. This book transported me back there and made me wish I was reading it with a mabí seibano in hand. I particularly liked how one of Santo Domingo's well-known infrastructural shortcomings was incorporated as a plot point in a book that did not involve animals boarding a large boat in pairs (if you know, you know). Loved it!
The storyline is very compelling and the character development captivates from the beginning, there’s more than what meets the eye with everyone. You get totally immersed in the plot all the way until the end.
I loved that the writing has beautifully executed descriptions of the scenery with the extra addition of local cultural remarks that transport the readers to the center of Santo Domingo and the inner workings of the Dominican lifestyle. I makes you feel like part of the story.