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I liked this chunk of a book a lot, because it sent the story in a few different directions I wasn't expecting.  First, it was nice to see them stop in the small town of Yarri and add the dwarf to their party, although I bet the residents of the small town were less than happy at losing many of their kin, their leader, and both of their smiths.  I was also a little surprised such a small town had so much metal (even the gate was made of iron).  I would think someone would sack the town just for that.  Still, it was a good reprieve from the random desert encounters.

I like that this section finally brought the issue of the serial killer to a head and brought Rieve back into the story.  I wasn't sure how either of these were going to be resolved, so it was smart on the part of the author to bring those two loose ends together into one plotline.  Still, there is a lot left unresolved in this story, especially with less than 100 pages remaining, and I'm hoping the ending isn't left too open, as I haven't heard of any plans for a sequel for this book.  (As an aside, one thing that kind of annoys me about some of the Wizards books is that they're left intentionally open ended so the author can make a shot at another book deal, but in many cases they never return to the characters and the story is left unresolved. Hopefully this isn't one of those.  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a few loose ends as long as the main plot is resolved, but some of the books I've read have been WAY too open ended.  I guess there's a balance.  I would say an example of a good balance was Downshadow, even though Eric did get a book deal for sequels.  I wasn't left unsatisfied by the ending.)

I'll be most interested to see how Jeff Mariotte handles the whole Aric/Rieve/Myrana thing going on now that Aric clearly has feelings for both of them.  And it seems like Corlan must have a larger part to play.  And who is the serial killer?  This will probably be the biggest surprise and there are a lot of possibilities left in my mind - Rieve's father or grandfather, Corlan, Nibenay himself, Nibenay's son - although I think at some point the killer did say he had a wife and family, so that points to someone more mundane like a member of Rieve's family.  (It's obviously not her brother who was accused.)

I'm excited for the end and I'll be very impressed if Jeff can bring this all to a satisfying conclusion with so little real estate left in the book. 

I think I'll just go ahead and post the rest as a chunk.  I think it's not more than what we've been doing.

The implication was that Rieve's brother was mentally handicapped, and the killer seems to be all with it, and like I said, I think mentions at one point that he has a wife and kids.  So I think there's probably a big reveal coming on who the actual killer is.  Should be interesting.