Jon Courtenay Grimwood delivered the defining sci-fi series of the early millenium with the Arabesk cycle and all of his work is on a 'must read' status for me. I had thought he had stopped writing as it had been a few years since I saw anything from him until I saw that he had branched out into historical fantasy with supernatural elements. Unfortunately, this was merely ok. It definitely needed tighter editting as sometimes the sentences didn't even make sense and the book only comes alive when one character is involved (and there are multiple pov chars in this). I will read the rest of the series anyways but this is not an auspicious beginning for a new trilogy.