** spoiler alert ** A lot of what I liked about this book was to do with the historical events on which the story was based. In this day and age of flash mobs, twitter, facebook and nearly instantaneous dissemination of information, it's hard to imagine the WWII era media silence that kept the story of the Japanese balloon bomb attacks secret and then unknown for decades. The characters and setting of the story was also compelling as was the exploration of spirituality and the nature of guilt and atonement. My book group also liked the book and we had a great discussion about it.