Priest of Crowns

Ending a series is always difficult, and while I enjoyed Priest of Crowns and feel it's an above-average conclusion, I do find that it attempted to do too much and there probably should have been a fifth novel. I am doing a terrible disservice to give the conclusion four stars.

No fan will be outright disappointed, but I see opportunities that were missed and it just doesn't have the climatic build up that made Priest of Bones / Lies such phenomenal books. As such, the series finishes with a four star novel, despite my love for the setting, characters, and the overall story.

It's the end of a series, let the spoiler discussion begin so that I can defend my docking of a star:

My main complaint is that this was two novels: the conclusion of the Ellinburg struggle with the Northern Sons and their foreign magic backers, as well as the Dannsburg shadow war that was being played out to secure the Rose Throne for Dieter Vogel. Splitting these massive conclusions into two books would have given us time to flesh out the antagonists and have more back-and-forth between the two sides... and let's be honest, we all knew there would be some heavy losses that Peter McLean would inflict on us and we need a bit of time to cry.

To be fair, the pacing of the Ellinburg struggle was close to perfect. The critical twist that it was always Vogel behind the conflict was brilliant, and similar to Tomas, I never really questioned it as it was brought up in the first book and had been a core assumption that undergirded all conflicts. What was lacking were two things: the Northern Sons's leader (whose name I honestly cannot recall) was given no screen time and was effectively a non-entity. The terrible battles that the Pious Men and their allies fought lacked emotional involvement for this reason -- Priest of Bones shone because Blood Hands, the old Governor, and even Captain Rogan were well established characters we could really hate. They gave as good as they got, and I don't believe the Northern Sons ever really damaged the Pious Men.

And that brings up the second thing, which is the idea that Tomas needed to be threatened and challenged. He was always on the offensive and the presence of the White Shadow did give us pause. But the Northern Sons were never a challenge, and so the major character deaths just did not have the same impact. Curt and Jochan both got a bit of character development before their deaths, and while that was great to see, it really underscored how the third novel paused everything in Ellinburg. And by pausing everything, we lowered the tension and there was insufficient time for the Northern Sons to build back up to the emotional (and real) threat that they were near the end of Priest of Lies.

Let's move on to Dannsburg, and this is where the star is docked. Perhaps 40% of the book is dedicated to taking down Vogel, someone who is built up to be a monstrous shadow player based on his historical success, and the moves he played in Priest of Gallows. Vogel, on the other hand, is barely even in this novel. He takes next-to-zero actions against Tomas, even passive-aggressively, and is effectively defeated on Tomas's first try.

And that's my main complaint. Tomas's win is too easy, and Vogel doesn't fight back at all. His plots all go off without setbacks (such as the nun's bombing campaign, his acquisition of dynamite, even hiding of the Crown Prince) and he takes over such a huge portion of the Queen's Men with such ease that Vogel is left with a single lieutenant (Conrad) and practically no other support. With 5% of the book remaining, Tomas finally rushes Vogel's House of Law and a few minor twists are tossed in... we lose Cutter because the author is sadistic, but despite Vogel knowing about Tomas's treachery, he fails to do anything more than force the Pious Men to fight more men than they expected. Really? Is that really all that he'd be able to do with a full day's warning?

And then of course, is Billy and his wife. That was truly a great set of ending scenes, but we needed significantly more build up. His wife had perhaps two scenes in all of this book before her treachery, and we had zero foreshadowing of her relationship with her parents. Could we have seen various plots of Tomas's fail, for him to lose a few Pious Men, and for us to wonder if maybe Luca, or Brother Truth, or Sister Deceit that were behind it? I think that should have been in the cards, but we never got this because Peter McLean rushed the ending.

And so that's it. I think at the end of the day, I felt that Priest of Gallows and Priest of Crowns offered no real challenge, or threat, to Tomas Piety and his Pious Men. There was build up, and the antagonists were dangerous, but a cold summary of each side's battles shows that Tomas was never really challenged.

Too bad. It was soooooo close to being legendary.