The Killer's Lair

3 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
A serial killer is still roaming Castle Faldorrah, and pretty soon he's got hold of Risley's love interest again. But the castle's inhabitants are all sure Risley is the one killing people.

Review
I've made no secret that I'm a sceptic of Jones' decision to split these new editions into neat, 100 page chunks. With this installment, I'm prepared to get off the fence and say it was a bad idea. There's too much going on here, and even a couple of weeks away from the story was enough for me to lose track, especially because this is a particularly chaotic installment, with people killed left and right. And sometimes with excessive violence, which is saying something for this series. There's also just a lack of credibility to some of it. One soldier loses an arm at the elbow, but still has no problem roaming around the countryside immediately thereafter.

While a strength of the whole series has been its rich backstory, and one thing I like about this branch is its willingness to delve further into that, here we get too much, and without enough structure. I lost track of the details of what's meant to be happening, and certainly of some of the subsidiary characters – one of whom I don't recall ever hearing of before (though she's explained somewhat well after being introduced).

While this installment is an argument for not breaking the story up, it's also beginning to suggest that the previously published ‘main' branch is substantially more coherent and planned than this author's cut. Sometimes, the editors may be right.