...all my favourite characters!

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Cauldron of Ghosts (Honor Harrington - Crown of Slaves) by David Weber and Eric Flint

 Once more Mesa and the doings of the Alignment are the core targets. All the usual suspects are in play with a few new characters added.   
The Alignment is cleaning house and exiting Mesa to regroup somewhere else after the latest breach of their facilities. That last episode had ended in complete havoc and destruction, a nuclear detonation being blamed on Zilwicki and Cachet. Operation Houdini is underway with highly placed minions disappearing under the cloud of mass killings, again being attributed to terrorists from Torch. Modelled on an onion the layers of the Alignment are stripped back, but the core is yet to be breached. Peeling the onion has become the task of  Victor Cachet, Anton Zilwicki and Thandi Palane. These three are right in the thick of the action. And what action it is!
I really enjoy the stories where these three are central. The references to Victor and his amazingly intuitive schemes are amusing. People find themselves 'joining [the] informal club, 
the one called, Hey-look-Victor's-sucking-everybody-into-his-schemes-like-a-black-hole-again!' The places Victor takes us are as always ingenious.
Sure my eyes crossed several times with the acronyms for weapons and organizations but if you barrel on through those the story is fantastic. As are the pearls of reflection that litter our heroes' paths. The action ended on an unexpected cliffhanger. I was just immersed up to my eyeballs. Now my eyeballs have to settle down to await the next chapter! 

 A NetGalley ARC

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