This note contains spoilers for the book.

At least I don't think it's a reread; but certain bits seemed familiar, when I got to them. It's not, at least, a reread since I started keeping these notes. Also, the title always makes me think of the Star Trek episode.

The package (embossing and foil, cover style) and quotes collection, and thickness, suggests this was an attempt to break Parker into the next level or so of best-sellerdom up from where he is now. But apparently it didn't work.

The book seems good enough, though I don't understand that level of success, not reading the books from it much. It's a generational epic starting with a high-up IRA Captain just after WWI, and detailing two weirdly-entangled families, one of rich people and one of cops, which contain a serial killer, blackmailers, and a bunch of guys (and some women) who really don't know how to have a relationship. There's a strong subtext that Catholicism is to blame, which seems very reasonable to me.

By the end, third generation, he's managed to get the families involved with each other; in fact the 2nd generation are now also involved.