Shadows Linger

This book is an improvement on book one in every way, and I think a very impressive book. It becomes multi-POV and the second POV really enhanced things. Croaker's annuls POV managed to be more emotional, philosophical and thought provoking despite keeping the matter-of-fact, sparse style of a soldier. The last third of the book was really good and has me excited to pick up the next one.

I also wouldn't really classify this book as military fantasy, and it's very different from book one, so I would recommend people who were meh on book one to try this one atleast. I'd say Shadows Linger has a fair amount of spy, crime, mystery, and horror elements and is only military insofar as it is following a group of people who are soldiers.

My only negative for this series so far is the writing style. I like Cook's prose. He is very effective, and I think people meme the short sentences thing a bit too much (although he does like short sentences). But something about it sets my brain on fire after a few chapters. I had to read this short book in 20ish page bursts because after around that much, I just had to do something else. Maybe I will get more into the flow of it for book 3, but I could see that being the chief barrier to this becoming an all time favorite, because otherwise I think this book was gasoline.