the linguistics parts were pretty cool. i liked and rooted for the protagonist. as far as the plot goes.. writing a good mystery novel is an almost impossible feat--you need to give the reader enough clues for the conclusion not to come out of the blue, but not enough for the reader to figure out the ending far ahead of the protagonist. in this book i knew who the perpetrator was halfway through. 

despite this flaw, i enjoyed this book enough to probably pick up the sequel when it comes out