I was just about ready to pull the plug on this series but having bought this book, I decided that I should read it before trading it in. The characters were drawn out much more comprehensibly. I'm starting to see definite characterizations for Simon and Baldwin, and the secondary characters are gaining some interest. I very much liked the Abbot. The mystery was well thought out and the history that created the mystery was quite interesting. I'm not sure I'm quite happy about having another 30 odd book series to read but if the rest of the books keep getting better like this one then I'll just have to suck it up and add them to the list of books to read.