All I can really tell you about this book (audiobook version) is that I couldn't get beyond the first tape. It seemed to be winding up to very predictable events: jealousies, intense sexual impulses, an almost comotose and paralyzed patient who, you know eventually, is going to tell all by blinking his eyes or wiggling a finger, in the meantime enduring savage behavior at the hands of his wife's former lover.My own prejudice is "move the plot along." If the author can do it with good characterization that's even better, but most mystery genre characters are pretty flat. So is this book.