Torin Kerr is now a Gunnery Sergeant. She is assigned to babysit a Major who has recently recovered from very serious injuries, and who has arm bones made of experimental plastics. They travel to Crucible, the Marine Corps training planet, and embed with a training platoon going through their rotation. Things soon start to go wrong as the Crucible systems go out of control. In parallel, Torin’s now boyfriend, a salvage operator she met in The Better Part of Valor, investigates a possible alien infiltration of the Confederation.
This volume was a disappointment after the well crafted fun of the first two novels. The plot is very contrived. The alien invasion infiltration elements do not mesh well with the action parts. Other seemingly random elements are neither entertaining, not pertinent to plot advancement or character development. The “how cool are we Marines” dialogue, fun in the previous installments, has gone totally over the top. It grated on my nerves constantly. The novel’s saving grace are the action scenes, which are up to the high standard set by the first two novels, and the strongly fleshed out characters.
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