The problem with starting a series in the middle is that you spend a lot more time than you want trying to figure out the 'regular' characters. Once past that, I thoroughly enjoyed the first part of the book - well, 3/4 of the way through. And I didn't minds that it wasn't all packaged up neatly at the end. I don't need my novels to have a bow tied on them when I finish. But just seemed at the 3/4 point, the author got tired of writing the story and just wanted to be done with it. Too bad. I liked the characters, and will probably go back to the 1st of the series and read it in order to learn more about them.