A Parliament of Bodies

I have mixed feelings about this novel.

On the one hand, it's exciting and gripping, a page-turner. I like the characters, and I quite like the scenario, which has depth. The plot is complex and ingenious.

On the other hand, there are various aspects of the book that I don't like so much:

1. Maresca has a taste for bizarre and implausible crimes, whereas I'd prefer something more credible. The star criminal of this story is implausible to the point of surrealism, which annoys me.

2. Magic is in use in this story. I have no objection to magic, but I like it to have well-established limitations and rules of operation, and here it seems to have none, except that the use of magic makes mages tired and hungry.

3. The heroes of this series (Welling and Rainey) are like rubber dolls, they keep bouncing back. Every day they have a horrible level of mental and physical stress, often getting knocked about and wounded; but they keep coming back for more, as though nothing had happened. I feel exhausted and battered on their behalf. Humans can put up with a lot if necessary, but in reality I think their mental and physical performance would be degraded, and I see little sign of it.

4. I was shocked to get to the end of this quite long novel (400 pages in paperback) and find everything about the situation unresolved. To find out what happened, we have to buy another book, which isn't available yet. Readers deserve some warning of this, which I'm providing here.

Overall, I think the author has talent, but I wish he'd use it in a way that was more to my taste!