This is an ambitious and at times startling book that feels like a natural fit for Chabon.  The prose is perfectly tuned to the story, and the book reads lightning-quick, with new tensions rising in each chapter, new complications at the end of every solution, and new characters popping up when they're least expected.  The strengths here -- the complexity of the story -- are also the weaknesses.  It's hard to completely follow what's happening.  The murder mystery itself is just as complicated -- maybe, even, convoluted -- as the historical/religious background that Chabon is creating and commenting on as he goes.

In the hands of a lesser writer, this book would be a disaster.  Chabon's gift for creative, stunning phrases saves the book, but in the end, it is at best a light-hearted what-if-meets-whodunnit novel.