I disliked the first half of the book. Having the only two female characters be pitted against each other, possibly over the conventionally attractive main male character felt like a sharp turn away from the style and plot of the last two books. It got far better in the second half, but having the two be catty with one another and so judgmental was sad. The book was written in the  peak of the "I'm not like other girls" YA era, and I think that's one of its main flaws. I really enjoyed how the story progressed and how the tension was broken between Lucy and Holly. The characters are all dynamic and round, and in the first two books they were far more adults than they were in this book. Even though I didn't quite like how the interactions were written, I do think that this book is more human. They are just teenagers, no matter how professional they are or how dangerous their jobs are. They're young, and I think this novel did a good job reminding the readers about that. I do have some theories about who was working in that underground mass grave. The cigarette is a good clue, but may be a red herring.

Mr Rockwell coming up with the ideas for the parade, his adept swordsmanship, and his habit of smoking point at him and/or the organization of rich people trying to find the source of the problem being the ones who caused the Chelsea outbreak. I'm interested to see how Lucy resigning is going to play out in book 4. Her being traumatized by what the ghost showed her is really well written written and I think that's an interesting move for her character to make.