One of the dangers of long book series is when the fall into the trap of episodic TV where things end pretty much where they started. Maybe a new character is introduced, but the protagonists have grown only in experience and nothing really changes the status quo. The Alex Verus series feels a bit like this early on. Books progress and the list of Alex's enemies grows. He's forced to make hard choices and walk a difficult ethical path, but he himself remains basically the same for it. That is, until Fallen.

This book goes up there on a list of series favorites like the Wheel of Time's Lord of Chaos. Things happen and nothing will be the same. That commitment to step off the ledge is thrilling for the reader, especially 10 books in. There's only two more in the series as of this review and I'm really curious to see what happens next.