Interesting little story. Nothing gruesome (drats), but plenty of allusions to gruesome stuff. Personally, I would have liked knowing more about the actual torture that is mentioned in the book. At one point, a character says something to the effect of "there are so many more creative ways to torture someone" and I thought "Great! Now we are gonna find out." But, alas, it wasn't to be. Maybe the author wasn't creative enough to figure it out either!