i had a really hard time getting into this book and had to force myself to keep reading for at least the first half. i found the stuff about the flood (and even some of the internal sûreté politics) excruciatingly boring, though i wasn’t aware the book was part of a long series at first initially. it’s possible that a reader of the series would have found the first half much more interesting, given that they are already invested in the various character arcs. about 3/4 of the way through, it really picked up and i wanted to know how it ended. i thought i had the mystery worked out a few times, but the author kept me guessing. this last bit, combined with some pretty literary touches throughout the book, makes me consider starting the series from the beginning eventually.

as a minor note, there were several inaccuracies with how the functionality and use of social media (twitter, instagram) were portrayed, but that seems like more of an editing rather than writing issue.