(See my booklogging of the first in this series, Talon of the Silver Hawk, here.)
Not quite back to the old Feist form, as I noted in the above-mentioned previous booklogging, but a definite pick-up from where we were with Talon. Characters fill out nicely, as does the plot.
Speaking of which, an interesting thing is that this middle book in many ways feels like a final book; inasmuch as the first-book-eponymous protagonist, Talon, completes his plot arc and has his revenge on those who destroyed his people, the main villain and the main-er villain receive their comeuppance, and except for a few dangling threads, we receive plot closure...
It looks, in fact, as if the protagonist hat for Exile's Return - based on hints, the title, and the short extract we see at the back of the book - will switch to one of those former main villains, the now-exiled-on-the-far-side-of-the-world Duke Kaspar of Olasko. That's an interesting trick, and seeing as said Olasko has been built up as quite an interesting character in his own right over the course of this book, one I hope comes off well.
