Reading Benedict Jacka's Bound (the latest in his Alex Verus series), is a good reminder of what got me sucked in to his writing in the first place. Great pacing and a real mystery as to what's actually going on. By the end, we get an idea of how many books he's been plotting a few of the twists through.
Bound covers roughly 10 months of of Alex's life after being made Morden's second at the end of the last book. Needless to say, it hasn't improved his popularity with Britain's Light Council. While this does get Alex back into the Keepers, they're not exactly bending over backwards to help him.
In the meantime, both Morden and Richard Drakh, Alex's former Master, have him running around on both Council business as well as some personal business that doesn't make much sense until the end. On top of that, Arachne sends Alex and Anne and Luna and Varium off on a secondary quest to find a dreamstone, an item that might help Alex reach Deleo and maybe help defeat Drakh.
Which leads to the foursome taking over a Shadow Realm of their own after a bit of an adventure with a really angry hammadryad.
Towards the end, with Verus and Anne tapped to break into council chambers (or so they think), we finally get a tantalizing peek at what's been going on behind the scenes for a few books now.
Drakh's plot so far reminds me a bit of a traditional trickster, someone who's several steps ahead of all the other players, and much better at arranging pieces on the board.
Given it will likely be a year before the next volume, I can only hope time passes quickly.
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