It may be odd to take joy from such a dark books, but it was such a joy to read for a cynical optimist like me. I only consider it to be a small joy rather than an outsized masterpiece because it reads as quickly as it does.

It propels you through its story, as all Block novels do, and ends up in a place I’d never expected. It is somehow a thriller and a meditation on the philosophy of its lead character at the same time. Block writes a first person narrative and manages to remove all sense of authorship, and I eventually engaged with it as an act of voyuerism. I am innocent of nothing in the fate of the dead girl.