I really tried hard to get into this book; the subject sounded very interesting. I even took another reviewer's advice and skipped ahead to the assasination (after forcing myself through the first third of the book), but try as I might, I couldn't get into this book. The characters were dull and the story boring. I was immediately drawn in by the prologue, but then the story went nowhere quickly. The part about the assasination was interesting, but the monotony quickly took back over soon after. It is unlike me to not finish a book once I'm already halfway into it, but I just can't seem to muster up the desire to stick it out. I think I'll just skip to the epilogue and see what happened during all those dull pages.