Part two of The First Law trilogy. Our anti-heroes of The blade itself find themselves in really unpleasant situations - warfare in the north against threatening barbarians having more than one surprise ready for their enemies, a quest towards the end of the world with a lot of nasty encounters and the order to hold a town under siege, which proves to be an impossible job at best. The tone of this book is darker, more gritty, but the author still adds a good deal of humour (especially in the plotline about Glokta, the cynical inquisitor). The mixture works for me. There is quite a lot of character development in this book - unpleasant circumstances make you grow or fail. Luckily most of the characters grow. The pace is much faster than in the first volume, the author moves back and forth between three plotlines. The fighting scenes are well written, although dirty and bloody (but that's how it is - as Logen, the barbarian, would say - one has to be realistic about this). One last remark: A map would have been a nice addition - I did not miss it that much in the last volume of the trilogy, but it would have helped to keep track of the characters and opposing forces in this book.