This is a book that takes its time. A summary of all the important actions and events in the book would take less than a single page. DuMaurier uses many, many words for descriptions and especially expectations, thoughts, hopes, dreams, opinions and memories of the nameless, unreliable narrator of the story. And that's perfect. This is a book to read with a big cup of tea and a fire in the fireplace on long winter nights. DuMaurier brings you to Manderley in this book that starts off as a romantic love story, changes into an account of an unhappy marriage and then becomes a mystery, almost a whodunnit, ending on a fine note of gothic suspense.
Some of the revelations and twists are fairly predictable: the affair of the masked ball, for instance. However, knowing (or suspecting) what's going to happen, makes the irony of the preceding passages and the double meaning of what the characters say even stronger. The characterizations are fine: you either love the characters or you love to hate them. And you have to adapt your opinion about the characters several times.
This is the first book in a long time that kept me up.