Burnt Shadows - a winner?

Several things recommended this book to me - a lovely cover, for one, in a line-up not noted for its jackets! In addition a couple of friends whose views I respect had spoken warmly of it, so - greater compliment has no librarian - I bought myself a copy (so as not to deprive Devon Library users of it, and half expecting I would want to re-read it).
The book begins in 2002 with a nameless prisoner, about to be taken to Guantanamo Bay. "How did it come to this?" he wonders. And that's the question Kamila Shamsie leads us through and around and towards. If I outline the main narrative events of the book -- Nagasaki 1945; Delhi 1947; New York 2001/2 -- it may sound obvious, perhaps rather clumsy....but the reality is very different. The sense of place is strong, and the beauty of the landscapes in which these terrible happenings occur is beautifully realised (including that of Afghanistan, which weaves in and out of the thread). It's a huge sweep of a book, but Shamsie never loses control of it - and within it the delicate details are beautifully drawn (and in my case at least, remembered).
I'm a gobbler of books that I like, but in this case I found myself, having thundered through the first 250 pages, slowing my pace - not because it was losing its grip, but because I could see that others, more ruthless than the characters I had come to "know" were driving us all towards a conclusion I wouldn't welcome. Highly recommended! A winner? Charlie Lee Potter, writing in the Independent just as Shadows was longlisted, certainly thought so.