Lovely space opera nonsense. ( )

Outstanding entry in the Ciaphas Cain saga....Mitchell has truly mastered presenting Cain as a self-serving, opportunistic and reluctant hero to the men and women of the Imperial Guard that he presides over in action on the battlefront. In this one, Cain and his fellow Valhallans are sent to put down heretics in an uprising on Adumbria. While there, he gets more than he bargains for, again, and humorously yet thrillingly comes out as a grand hero, all the while looking for the easiest and safest way to fulfill his duty and basically save his own arse from the evil that Chaos is. This novel is again full of the witty dialogue and settings that were so prevalent in the first two Cain novels. This is brilliant writing, IMHO. ( )

This is the third installment of the Ciaphas Cain series and it is, if possible, even better than the second. Cain finds himself being shipped of to a resort world that is going to possibly be the target of a chaos attack. When they arrive on the planet they discover that heretics have infiltrated various strata of society and need to be wormed out. To make matters worse, the warp is not behaving the way it should so it become impossible to send messages to the rest of the fleet or receive reinforcements. As the fight for the planet progresses, Cain soon discovers that the planet is more important than ever imagined and demons of the warp are trying to take control of that section of space. Throw into this mix a handful of Chaos marines and some warp sorcery and Cain definitely has his work cut out for him. Sandy Mitchell's use of differing voices, with different opinions and viewpoints, is very refreshing and entertaining to read. ( )