I picked up this book for two reasons: (1) I saw the trailer for the upcoming film and the premise intrigued me, and (2) I heard good things about the book it was based on. So, I picked it up in the airport and I plowed through an interesting and well-written 85% of the novel during a day of flights and airports only to discover the unfathomable horror of this book's sudden twist ending - it sucks.

*SPOILER ALERT*

The idea that a whole book has been a dream, delusion or hallucination ceased to be a desirable twist ending for me around about Grade 5. Somewhere around 100 pages from the end, I started seeing where things were heading and prayed Lehane wouldn't cop out. But sadly, he did. The narrator's partner is actually his psychiatrist and the killer he is looking for is actually himself. The names are anagrams of each other. The whole chain of events was a calculated experiment to try and cure the patient/narrator. Whatever. I was so disappointed because the set-up was so wonderful. His imagery and dialogue up to that point are great, and the suspense builds wonderfully to keep you reading straight through until the twist. However, the ending is simply lame and left me feeling cheated.

I am a Palanhniuk fan, but I was deeply disappointed by this latest effort. I had a very difficult time getting beyond the strange voice of the novel. It went on for far too long and then kept going. While it wasn't difficult to read, it was difficult not to get annoyed to the point where I didn't care abut the story anymore. I understand what he was trying to say in terms of social commentary and that he chose a unique method of doing it, but I just didn't think there was much substance to it once you got past the gimmick of the broken English.