Black wizards

This book appears to be just a bridge between the book 1 and book 3. The plot is rather straightforward and it tries to set things up for book 3. But I never got around to wanting to read book 3 because I just wasn't interesting enough to pique my interest. Even though the main characters are mostly back and the continuation of the plot is good enough, the ending leaves much to be desired as it seemed to have been over rather quickly - all for the lead-in to book 3 I guess.