These books are seriously not for me. Yes, they are competently written, the plots are interesting, the protagonists good enough BUT I honestly cannot stand the malicious incompetence of everyone else in the world. Particularly the ending of this one felt needlessly cruel in the vein of "nah nah, you cannot get what you want because everyone else is a stupid asshole". Also, all the detail is somehow ... in the wrong place? We get detailed competence porn of clever people doing clever things with zero tension, but we absolutely gloss over things I'd have felt deserved a bit more explanation.

I don't know. I'm just on a different wavelength than the writer, apparently.