Viktor Larenz is a psychiatrist, whose twelve-year-old daughter, Josy, got sick and either disappeared or died in a very obscure scene.

One thing is very clear from the start, Viktor Lanetz sees things nobody else sees. The main mystery of the book is what is hallucination and what is real. My guess, after 20-30 pages read, was that 100% of all non-Viktor characters are hallucinations. This is what the author implies. However, this book has 4.1 on Goodreads, and I’m sure that 90% of the readers made the same guess and wouldn’t have rated it 4.1 if it was that simple.

On top of that, the tagline, what happened with Josy, turns out to also be quite mysterious, and it will be solved.

This is not a realistic book. It’s dark noir, made-up, annoying, with plot twists designed to play with your mind. It has the vibe of Sucker Punch, if you remember that movie, and The Poison Artist by Jonathan Moore. However, it’s not quite up to that bar, just leaning that way from a close distance.

I rated it 3/5 on Goodreads because for the most of the book, it felt too obvious. The stuff that wasn’t obvious felt too made up. However, the Goodreads audience disagrees and rated this over 4, which is pretty high. In general, my interpretation for Goodreads ratings is as follows:

• <3.9 – I’ll be disappointed
• 3.9-4.2 – readable, usually good books
• 4.3+ – rating unclear, skewed by fans

This book is well within the readable range and it is not bad but I didn’t like it. I will, however, try another book by the same author, this time with adjusted expectations. Hopefully, I’ll like the next one more.