** spoiler alert ** This saga is a real page turner. I was hooked, practically obsessed, with reading it. I was intrigued by a writer willing to kill off the main character so early, then play fast and loose with everybody's lives. You have no sense of safety for the characters you like -- and have no sense that the ones you don't will meet a just reward -- just like real life. However, it's full of details I really don't care about. I started to think the publishers were asking the author to fill space, to keep me buying volumes (which I did). This story, which isn't finished yet, as a three volume set would have been great. Also, the violence started to wear me down.