I really would give this book closer to a 3.5 but I rounded down. It's got some high points, and I thought it worked as an atmospheric mystery set at the turn of the last century (though Stefanie Pintoff does it better). But Rubenfeld also stuffed the book with what are obviously, from his bio, very personal interests in Freud and in Hamlet. Those, especially the analysis of Hamlet, really slowed the story down.