I'm glad I tackled this as an audiobook: the prose was so rich and fruity that to have read it conventionally might have induced that feeling one gets after an indulgent Christmas lunch when you struggle to down the Christmas pudding served with brandy butter. Indeed, as the events at the heart of the book occur over Christmas in snowy southern Germany, it makes good Christmas holiday listening, preferably in a comfy armchair, by an open fire with a large schnapps to hand.