"Maybe, rather than a linear mystery to be unlocked by the end, I should see it as immersing myself in the larger world of the characters. The problem with that is: I don't like any of the characters and I'd sooner immerse myself in a vat of cold Marmite! I think I'm supposed to sympathise with the American scientist lady, because this is rural England and the locals read the words "American scientist lady" the same way they read the words "Venusian ballerina crab". But she's hardly meeting them half-way; treating them like idiots and reacting hypersensitively to their blissful ignorance, like a cat that shares a litterbox with a hedgehog."