I’ve read good things about this series so I thought I’d start at the beginning with the first book. Unfortunately the author thought much the same thing and started the book with a load of backstory that seemed to me as if it could have been left out. The interesting bits were indeed left to be filled in later so what you get is a long slow start with very little mystery and a lot of clunky writing. When the book got going I quite enjoyed it and the writing either got better or at least annoyed me less. Though I thought the plot was a bit thin the characters grew on me after the shaky start. I won’t say that I won’t pick up another of these later if I keep hearing good things about them but I think it was a mistake to start with this one.