This one blew my mind in a way that made me quite emotional after processing my thoughts and overall feelings after reading it.

Firstly, before going into this book, out of all the books in the series, I would strongly recommend everyone to be in the right head space when reading this; as for me, this is the most complicated and technical that Craven has wrote out of the first three in the series.

Secondly, eventhough its a standalone series; its still a part of a series, and I STRONGLY urge everyone to read through the first three books in the series to avoid any confusion as the past cases have been mentioned a lot in this book. I strongly suggest to read through the first three.

Now here are my Thoughts for this book.

Honestly, Craven does it again. Despite this book being long and complicated, with the addition of SO MANY terms that made your head spin, as this book in particular revolves around the topic of Military Politics and a UK one as well, it made this case more refined than I thought it did when I started reading it. The way everything turned from the start had made my brain had a whiplash as I think Craven had to go into every detail.

And the thing about Craven's books...... I always learn something new and boy, from this one, I do not want to share anything with anyone.

I missed Poe and ESPECIALLY TIllly and lord Tilly shone in here. Poe as a character is one that you'll genuinely love to follow. Eventho he seemed harsh, at the end of the day, he's one of the characters that threads on the lines between black and white and honestly, I love that for him.

The thing about this book was how messy and tricky Military Politics can be. There's more to it than meets the eye and definitely we can see how it has an effect for everyone involved. In some sense, I liked that we are introduced to the inter-military politics in the UK as most of our media revolves heavily around the US media. In a way, it goes to show that conspiracy theories are there for a reason, and human greed is a scary thing. The end of the book was for me... an emotional one and I understood why it happened the way it did.

And for what's worth, this book will seem long and a tad heavy, but I assure you, in the right headspace, you will definitely enjoyed this as much as I did. Would say Craven did it again and I honestly can't wait to read The Botanist, the next installment in the series!

4.5 Stars for this gem!

Biggest thank you to @definitelybooks for this copy :)