Visiting the Shonkla-raa stronghold to learn more about them, Frank makes a deal with the enemy and plans for the final battle, as each of his allies tries to betray him.

If the earlier books in this series felt like the main characters were bouncing around everywhere and moving haphazardly from theory to theory, this book goes overboard on that just by itself. The first half takes place on a space station where Frank is accused of murder, but like every other time, he talks his way out of it. I’m not sure why every species falls for his obvious lies; it’s like they are as confused as the reader and just let him go. However, as in the last book, I liked how he worked with Mohdri, but they did a lot of nothing while observing everything, with so many false leads that I didn’t try to figure them out, just trying to stay with the ride. Unfortunately, while the showdown in the cargo bay was more interesting, I don’t think it was worth all the setup. The second part is more mundane, though not nearly as sedate. Frank’s plan to destroy the Shonkla-raa was simplistic compared with what’s come before, but the finale, while somewhat satisfying in that it ties up multiple threads from all five books, is way too convenient. I can’t say that I fully enjoyed this series to its potential, given the great aliens and the theory of the Quadrail itself.

I don’t know where to start, except to say that I was thoroughly confused and got tremendous whiplash in the first part of the book, and felt the whole thing dragged on far too long.

The book picks up where the last one left off, as they enter Proteus station in Filiaelian space. Terese German is taken to a genetics compound to fix a disorder before she gives birth, and Frank is charged with murder. Like always, he talks his way out of being jailed, and instead ends up with two giant doglike creatures as escorts until the trial.

As usual, Bayta is left confused, but she’s picking up on his suspicious nature, and because he has space to roam, Frank moves around, searching several rooms, investigating another murder for which he was framed, infiltrating Wandek’s office, and skipping through the station’s moving walkways, which are very similar to those in Asimov’s Caves of Steel.

In almost every case, he’s able to dazzle the people who try to kill or imprison him. Eventually, he reveals the existence of the Shonkla-raa, which makes him another target. All throughout, Emikai (a Filly detective) helps his investigations. My favorite parts were the escape from Wandek’s office, though that got way too complicated, and the race across the walkways, where he used the shifting speeds to his advantage.

Frank also gets help from Modhri, in the form of a deaf alien named Minnario (his deafness saved him from Shonkla-raa whistle in The Domino Pattern, and here too), who infects all the doglike creatures so that he has eyes and ears everywhere on the station. Minnario is an attorney and volunteers to represent Frank in his murder charge. Together, they manage to rescue Terese, then rescue Bayta (who was captured amid all of this) and Frank uses helium gas to alter the Shonkla-raa tone so they can no longer control the Modhri, and they escape.

Off-screen, while Frank and Bayta are riding the long train back to human space, Emikai raids the Shonkla-raa labs where they were genetically engineered and destroys them, leaving the Shonkla-raa without a means to increase their numbers. I have trouble believing that they didn’t have backups on an offsite location, but it’s the only way the story can proceed to its final resolution.

Frank and Bayta come into contact with McMicking, who we haven’t seen in a couple of books, and it turns out that the only way the Mohdri can communicate with them properly is by allowing McMicking to realize he’s a walker –a waking walker. If this seems familiar, it’s because it is. We met the Melding back in Odd Girl Out, and this story brings back Rebekah. It turns out that the Mohdri is terrified of becoming a slave to the Shonkla-raa, so much that it’s willing to change itself and work with Frank to destroy their masters. It’s also willing to give up its plan to dominate the world.

Unfortunately for Frank, the Shonkla-raa didn’t fall for his ruse about targeting the quadrail stations entering Filly space. Fortunately for him, they decided to bring every single last one of their kind to meet him. They took over the Melding/Mohdri humans with their whistle, and forced Frank to get them inside the warships hidden underneath the sands of the planet from The Third Lynx.

Because some of the Mohdri were faking, not having been pricked by the coral, and they hid the lynx statues around the ship that ALL of the Shonkla-raa were investigating. As we recall from The Third Lynx, it produces a telepathic explosion that can make telepathic beings brains burst, or the equivalent. The Mohdri segment was willing to sacrifice itself to do this to end the threat forever.

I found the ending to be way too convenient, even as Frank continues to talk his way out of situations and to fool those beings who were otherwise too smart already. The Mohdri is now benign, and the Shonkla-raa threat is no more. Even the Chahwyn seem to have forgotten their grudge by the end, as they threatened to kill Frank if he told anyone that they created the Shonkla-raa to begin with, the same way they created the Defender spiders. Only they grew independent and didn’t want to be controlled, so they turned on their masters, something Frank tells them will happen again if they aren’t careful.

I was lukewarm to the series as a whole, mainly because of the writing style. The plots were very complicated, but I was able to follow them, or if not then I went with the flow. The species were not very distinct, as if all species had the same kinds of goals, though slightly different values. It’s too bad Frank was able to turn them all into gullible puppets, even when he makes the wrong assumptions, no matter what their grievance is.