[rating:4/5]

I found this book to be a rather intriguing read. While it seems that reviewers on Amazon either love it or hate it, I suspect that this may be due to several factors:

1. It’s not the easiest book to follow due to the large number of characters and their “foreign” (mostly Italian) names. I found myself having to read and reread much of the material just to keep take of the characters.

2. The book was originally written in Spanish. My gut feeling is that the person(s) who translated this novel into English may not have done justice to the book.

3. The topic of the book; itself, requires a certain amount of background knowledge prior to reading it. If this is the case, some may have found it to be dry and boring.

Personally, I found the book quite interesting – especially once I got into the story.