I greatly enjoyed this. I thought that it worked as crime fiction and as historical fiction.There is a fair bit of exposition and historical background especially early on. However it wasn't too jarring and a lot of it was fascinating. At times it felt like I was getting a sneaky history lesson.The protagonist is an interesting and well drawn character. Most of the other characters are convincing and there were some fascinating and realistic portraits of actual real historical figures.The pace was maybe slightly slow at the start and maybe at times everything was a bit too neat, especially at the end.I loved the writing style. I thought that it really was well written. Despite being a big book it was a really quick and enjoyable read.