All the reviews that said it was too "talky" for a mystery are accurate. The first "story" about the missing child is much too detailed. After all, half the characters die or disappear after that. Do we really need to know so much about them? The one character we should have had a bit more insight into was the father, but perhaps that was on purpose to obfuscate for a later plot point.

It took me awhile to warm to Jackson as well. He seems a bit inept for the first half of the book. However, I enjoyed it enough that I was willing to brave the second instalment. Helps that I could speed the reading up.