And Ol' Bloody Joe knocks it out of the park again! (For the record, nobody calls him that.) Phenomenal ending to the entire First Law series, with glorious callbacks referencing the first book, a full circle fourteen years in the making. As I always say, for maximum enjoyment it's best to read all of his First Law books, in publication order.

I found myself alarmed at first when I noticed some of the dialogue tags; "snarled", "grunted", "wheezed," and I thought, no, not my beloved Joe too, did I just never notice before? But they were appropriate, supported by the dialogue itself, matched by the guttural, earthy language of the book and its tone overall, and peppered in just enough to not be distracting and quickly became invisible, as all great writing is.

The story: sublime. The characters: horrible and lovely at the same time. The bleakness: hilarious, but then suddenly not so, not in the least; that's how Joe gets ya'.

*Buddy read with the irrepressible William, who picks up on a lot more details than I do.