Barbara is perfect, thus naturally irritating, yet still understandable. One of the minor delights of the book is her relationship with her bishop. Nick Fazzio is the hardest to accept because for a detective he seems Too Good. He has time for everyone, exudes concern and patience, and cheerfully believes whatever odd story Marly or Caitlin may tell him. Perhaps I have read too many mysteries whose crusty cops demand tangible evidence.
Good novels are well-written novels.
Since Sillitoe is a poet and journalist as well as a novelist, one expects and gets a book whose style enhances the pleasure of reading. But soon the nausea and disorientation leaned toward her like bare branches, and the awareness of pain rose again, easing vision, filling her ears with the roar of water over rapids, as the flood closed over her without a trace. The hymns always seemed to her the most essential part of the service, the simple core. The words sang in her head, but what mattered were the harmonies that flickered with the soft, luxuriant patterns cast by the huge, stained-glass window at the chapel's far end. Sillitoe has written a book about Mormons that I believe will be interesting and valid for members and non-members alike.