I really did enjoy this book overall. The story and the pacing were interesting enough to get me to finish the book, but I had some issues with it that prevented a higher rating. The Louisiana setting and central mystery of the plot drew me in, but I found all of the characters to be little more than caricatures of "Northerners" and "Southerners"- the attempt at dialect for some of them was particularly irritating. Although, since this is a first novel, it could just be that it was an awkward initial attempt at trying to lend the characters some authenticity.

I'm not sure that I'd read the other books in the series, once they're available, even though I did find "Gates" to be a real page-turner.