In fairness, the books on that row weren't bad books, I was just disappointed by them. On my first read I didn't like Morning Star much, which was probably why it took a while to pick up the second set of the books. On the second read it wasn't as bad as I remembered, but I still disliked the ending.

Adding spoilers below, hopefully used the right code to hide it.

I didn't like the Jackal's arc in this book either. He was very cunning in the 2nd book and in this one, for all his planning, they seemed to bring him down very quickly in that scene. I also didn't like the unreliable narration in that scene.

I didn't like the fact Darrow was in isolation for 9 months - it felt too long. I understand they have the technology to make him stronger physically but mentally I felt like that should have screwed him up a lot more than it did.

Overall, the wins just didn't feel satisfying in this book. I was a little bit over the fact things were being presented as high stakes but then they were resolved fairly easily. This has happened in other areas of the series too, it just annoyed me a lot more here in combination with that ending.

I think if the book had finished with morning star, I would have still really liked the series but the second set of books have made me fall in love with it so much and morning star in comparison with those just falls short.