The second book in the trilogy; the trilogy with an unusual structure in that it moves back in time rather than forward. The first book was one I devoured at top speed, as I also did this one. The first book also had the single darkest ending I can remember to any sort of more popular/genre novel of this type. The Island is beautifully written, and the translation is smooth and deft. It maintains an unmistakable air of lingering threat and fear and contains some passages of writing describing characters looking at and hanging out around a spot on a mountain with a vertiginous sheer drop; it must, surely, be the only piece of writing that has actually made me experience vertigo and I don't think I can ever rememeber feeling quite so anxious in a book about something that may or may not happen. It's redolent of the whole novel - beautifully constructed and structured, with excellent plotting and characterisation.