I've harbored a feeling for a while that the pithy dialogue in these books could easily become smarmy. It smacks of the linear descent in Aaron Sorkin's writing from A Few Good Men, one of the greatest movies ever made, to The Newsroom, which is a festering turd of a TV series. It hasn't gotten that bad with this series but the writers better get their act together in the next novel.

For the first time in this book series it felt I was being primed for a sequel at the cost of the current storyline. And that feels a bit exploitative.

Ah well, the need for closure in fictional universes is one of my addictions so I'll shove on hoping that the next one is worth it.