With this, the fourth in the Longknife series (which now consists of seven books), Mike Shepherd really hits his stride. He's got the formula down pat. As usual, he lets you know what's incoming for Kris and the fun is figuring out how she'll deal with the threat. His characters are interesting, and his plot elements mesh smoothly.
Naturally, Kris is once again sent on some obscure mission in order to keep her in line, out of trouble, and out of the way. As before, she ends up being confronted by two tasks. In the first one, she captures a pirate ship quite easily, which leads to the discovery of some mysteriously alien tech that must, of course, not fall into the wrong hands.
Then, she is forced to defend an idependent planet, which has the sort of government that Heinlein would have approved of (whether the author himself does I leave for the individual readers to decide for themselves) against the planned take over by the Longknifes' enemy, the Peterwalds--represented in this case once again by their idiot spawn, Hank. As usual, the odds seem to be against her. Of course, since this is the fourth of seven . . . well, you know she'll prevail.
The novel goes on a bit after Kris wins out, too--and sets up the machinery for the next installments. We learn more about Abby the mysterious steamer-trunk-bearing maid, too.
It's all smooth, harmless, a fun read. It goes down easily, like an episode of one of your favorite TV dramas. And Mr. Shepherd doesn't let things get stale.
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