*SPOILERS* PLEASE DON'T READ THIS REVIEW IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE BOOK. Reading this book was like watching a thriller movie. I was never sure what would happen next but there seemed to always be a new action just around the corner.
I found the opening fabulous, a lonely figure in a holidaying crowd, obviously out of place with a huge weight on his mind doing a sort of romantic job of leaving a trail of playing cards behind him for other to find. I did feel a sense of loss when Frank dies because he is the first character you're introduced to and get to know his personality and hopes a little before he is just a memory in the other characters minds. I found myself forgetting about the lonesome figure later on in the book just as Ida suggested everyone would because life still continues with all it's colour immediately after his death. Ida here acquires even more strength of character because even the reader themselves has forgotten the brief encounter with this character yet she fights for his justice until it has been paid for.
The characters were well defined, Pinkie's hatred towards almost every living being was so intense it made me feel frightened of his darkness and his next move, at times he felt like a true villain. On occasion you did have to feel sorry for him because his anger was clearly rooted in his unhappy, squalid childhood. Ida was an extremely strong character, I liked having such a strong female in the book who was willing to fight for what she believed in contrasting greatly with the small mousy Rose who was just starting out in life and willing to be led into wrong doings at the first sign of tenderness. I didn't quite understand the ending, what was meant by her facing the 'worst horror of all'? Did Greene mean facing a life of bringing up a child on your own or did he mean Rose had had an epiphany and realized she had never been loved at all? Perhaps it was to do with the mortal sin theme?

Enjoy!