This novel is a true literary work of art. It's deep and complex, and Faulks approaches the minefield of "the mind" in a clear and sensitive way. He also writes "Human Traces" in a style quite reminiscent of the literary greats of the nineteenth century, so you have to be careful not to try and rush it along as you're reading. The characters are likeable and believable from the beginning. There's young Sonia who almost as soon as the novel begins, finds herself in a clearly unsuitable marriage, her bright brother Thomas, to whom she is devoted, and the ambitious French lad Jacques who comes from a quite different background. The boys meet by chance and, overcoming the language barrier, discover their mutual passion for science and the human mind. They are kindred souls, and their quest for understanding the mind is to take them along many, and sometimes different, paths - the Salpetriere in Paris, a county lunatic asylum in England, and across Europe, until they are considered quite renowned in their field of psychiatry. Faulks's novel traverses one of the most illuminating periods in the history of psychiatry - the transitional phase from the late nineteenth century across into the twentieth and the First World War. Covering changes in care from restraint, to moral treatment, to psychiatry and neurological and drug treaments, the novel is a really good introduction to the history of psychiatry and one of its' major developmental phases. In a way its' strength is also its' weakness. There are just a few places where I wished that Faulks had concentrated slightly less on the psychiatry and slightly more on the plot and characters. The depth of detail about the psychiatry can be bewildering and is probably not of interest to everyone. If I could have given it 4.5 stars I would! However, it's a small criticism and overall I can highly recommend the book.