This trilogy has many of the elements of connected mystery short stories. There are detectives and people pretending to be detectives. There are stake outs. There are missing persons. But unlike traditional mysteries, each story ends with an unsolved dilemma and if you are reading it as a traditional 'whodunit', you are in for a let down. But the journey of reading each of these stories is enjoyable, more for the psychology of what goes on in people's minds and how obsession leads to madness. This is more of a 3.5 stars for me. Definitely intriguing enough to want to read another by this author.