Leary has finally been promoted, but due to political machinations he is not given a new ship command. Instead, he is assigned as the executive officer of a paranoid Captain whose last move was to violently quash a mutiny by massacring the perpetrators, one of whom was a senator’s son. Leary cannot play humble, and ends up squarely in the sights of his superior.
The series certainly isn’t becoming dull, but I find that Drake missed an opportunity here. The main plot complication in the early part of the book is the contrast and conflict between Leary and Captain Slidell. However, Leary quickly manages to get himself assigned to detached duty, robbing the readers of a whole raft of interesting situations. If you can look past that, this is still a strong book in the series, though not quite as good as those preceding it.
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