Instruct: Classify a review as either positive or negative.
Query: A wonderful first novel

Pattison paints an achingly beautiful portrait of modern-day Tibet and creates deeply felt characters the reader can believe in and feel for. It takes a good writer to show the evolution of a character, and Pattison manages to do so with more than one. The story traces a murder investigation involving a political prisoner and his keepers, with an interesting twist on the investigator. Although the ending was a bit pat, I won't spoil it by explaining why I felt it perversely cheated fate. Nonetheless, any writer would be proud to call this his first novel. I will be interested to see how he follows it up.