Hounded from Manticore in the wake of Field of Dishonor, Honor has landed on Grayson, to grieve, heal, and take up her new responsibilities as Steadholder Harrington. But not all is well on Grayson, and Protector Benjamin's reforms have provoked a powerful conservative reaction. Honor is the target of a massive conspiracy to set Grayson back to the bad old days, and of course the Peeps are up to their usual military tricks.

There are moments in this book that really work-everything from the assassination attempt against Honor to the confrontation in the Chamber of Keys is really compelling and dramatic. That aside, this is where the cracks in the series show. One common complaint is that Honor is infallible, and this would've been a perfect place for her to stumble a little. Sure, Honor is a very good starship commander and martial artist, and she wins her pistol duels, but she's operating entirely out of her element. She could've failed to delegate effectively when promoted from battlecruiser captain to superdreadnought admiral, or screwed up civilian administration somehow, or just have more cultural problems. But no, Honor is perfect and so is almost everything in her life, and she has to win her victories by unimaginable margins.

The other problem is that while Weber is a decent wordsmith and knows how to steal from history, he's a lousy sociologist, and the more we see of Grayson the less it holds together. I just don't buy the balance between the Steadholders, the Protector, and the Church, or the way that Graysons seem so ordinary and American, when in fact they're a monolith religious nation practicing polygamy and radical gender inequality living on a planet that's basically a toxic waste dump.

In my headcanon, this is where the Honorverse ends. Sure, there's more story to tell (and books to sell), but her personal arc has reached its limit. Weber might agree, since the later books get bloated with secondary viewpoint characters, digressions on treecats, and all kinds of nonsense.