I was fascinated by Henry Hayden.  He was a bad man who committed some pretty heinous crimes. His conscience bothered him, but not quite enough.  His was aware that there was something fundamentally wrong with him, but he was okay with it.  Henry seemed to be pulled by a tide, allowing himself to be drawn into situations he knew would not end well.  And when they didn't end well, you could almost see him shrugging his shoulders, ducking his head, and plowing forward anyway.

Henry was able to make people love him and fear him.  There was something addictive about him. You knew you should run away, You knew you shouldn't get involved.  You couldn't help yourself. It's all your own fault for putting yourself in the way, for not understanding that once you became an obstacle, you would be removed.  I really liked the fact that we never found out where Henry was or what he was doing during those "missing" years of his life.  You can guess, perhaps he was digging for his mother, but it was never truly explained.  Tying everything up in a neat bow at the end would have ruined the feel of the story.  This book has been added to my must read list!