The first hundred pages or so are very slow paced. The book picks up suddenly and it becomes very hard to put it down. Yet the ending was, very expectable, slow and ... disappointing. Never the less, I felt I was there, in New York, I thought I could smell and see everything. Great mood setting descriptions. I'm not sure what happened towards the end of the book, it's as if the author was tired of writing and out of ideas. I wished there was a twist at the end but there wasn't. The unexpected thing about this book is that it had some very funny moments. I caught myself laughing out loud in a certain train scene. It's not an easy read, not just because of the elaborately long story telling but also because of the grizzly subject matter which is told in agonizing details. Over all, I linked it very much though.