One of the strangest novels I have ever read. It is an adventure mystery, but do not imagine that you will get any satisfaction at guessing the murderer.

It has more twists than a very twisty thing. The characters are good, no bad, no good, no unfairly suspected by the police, no fairly suspected and so on. There are secret passages, and characters that appear from nowhere.

I guess modern detective fiction must be incredibly formulaic, but I challenge anyone to read this and give an accurate explanation of the full story five minutes afterwards. Less of a whodunnit, more of a howdunnit, whydunnit and whatonearthisgoingon.