Alex has just about settled into his role as part of the Light - defending mages and occasionally investigating potential breaches of the informal covenants that keep them from the awareness of the greater populace. Once such routine incident suddenly assumes greater importance when he's attacked by an unrelenting Air mage with little concern for secrecy. Alex manages to just about escape alive and becomes aware that a trinket he'd discovered could be more important than expected.

Behind the scenes of the corridors of power there are factions and secrets and peccadillos - some more serious than others. Everything has been a careful balance of the status quo - not something that Alex is particularly interested in keeping given that it means the exploitation of innocents, something Alex already has enough loading his conscience.

Another fine installment always fun and interesting. It's particularly noteworthy how Jacka has managed to keep the power levels realistic and prevented Alex from gaining new abilities, instead he has to be even cleverer as the opponents are significnatly more powerful than he is. ( )

This novel keeps the slowed down speed of the story. Not in the action - everyone gets in trouble again but in the main storyline - Richard is still in the shadows (even if we met him at the end of the last book) and Alex is doing everything he can to ignore the fact that he is back. And the best way to do that is to become one of the Keepers (or the next close thing to it anyway).

The main plot of the novel involves an organization which supplies slaves to whoever has the money to buy them. Add magic and they are even nastier than they sound on paper. Except that as it turns out, nothing is black and white in the world and the Council is not really made of upstanding mages who never do wrong. So when the battle for White Rose starts, you never know whose side anyone is on. Alex being Alex refuses to play politics, goes after the bad people and... ends up in a pickle (as usual). The problem with taking down highly connected bad people down is that there are always worse ones behind them and the connections usually mean trouble. A lot of it. A Senior Council mage gets offended enough to threaten Alex (again) and by the end it is not really clear if all that was done, despite being noble, did not open the door for a bigger evil (which in Alex's word is of course Richard Drahk (with Morden and a few more new affiliates).

One of the things I always liked about the series is the Dark/Light concept - death mages can be Light, life mages can be Dark. It is not really about good or evil (well, most mages believe it is but being a Dark mage does not make you evil - it just marks you like someone who does not care about the rules). Alex is starting to slowly realize that he will need to make a choice finally - sitting on the sidelines and being independent does not seem like a viable option long term. But as with the Richard story, the final choice is not here yet and when it comes, it is unclear if Alex won't chose the dark side - everyone thinks he is there anyway. Meanwhile Luna has a new teacher (a dark mage) who helps with her chance magic and Anne and Variam had become firm allies with Alex after the disruptions in the previous books. Add Caldera (who may be a bit too straight-laced to become an ally but is getting there) and Landis and Alex is definitely not the lonely mage we met at the start of book 1 anymore. ( )

Really loving this series, and especially appreciating the agonizing choices that Verus continues to make -- yes really, if you thwart this one guy it will help your other enemy, even if that one guy is also a douche. Way to make the best choices you can anyway, Verus. I'm hoping it works out for you. ( )

Another solid edition, but it suffers from being less personal on any front. I mean, Verus as a probationary Keeper (a cop) of the Light Mages? It sounds like the plot needed a bit of stretching, to me, but okay, I'll get over it, let's see where this takes us.

Politics. Of course, it has to be politics.

Fun fight scenes, interesting developments in the mage world, and a pretty glorious take-down mission full of intrigue and double-crossings, but like I said, less of a personal novel. There's no new grand reveals or anything when it comes to Verus or his friends. If it wasn't for the politics and the sense that some major shit is going to come down in the upcoming novels, I'd almost say to prospective readers to skip this one, but it was still entertaining even if it felt more like a military action than an UF novel during the last quarter of the novel.

To each their own. I still thought it was good. ( )

Veiled reads a little like a buddy-cop story, except with magic. I really enjoyed seeing Alex and Caldera work together and develop a tenuous partnership based on trust and respect. The political machinations were a bit confusing (and the various Council factions seemed somewhat contrived), but overall, Veiled is a fast-paced, entertaining read. The Alex Verus series has become one of my all-time favorite urban fantasies, and I can't wait to find out what happens next! ( )