Yes, he is the scion of the crime/suspense pair of Faye and Johnathan Kellerman but this novel feels as if he is struggling to break free from his parents' writing genre and influence and be his own man/author.
The plot is deceptively simple and does the meta-physical leap of imagination that Paul Auster is well known for, and to a lesser extent, Ian McEwan. One cannot help but think of Kiss of the Spiderwoman or even the movie, Moon over Parador for similar sense of imagination/farce cross pollination.
However, it is tough to immerse oneself in the plot as it keeps slipping away from the reader (me, that is)