I have never felt so much sympathy and desire to see success for a ruthless, amoral antihero with no particular interest in the collateral damage of his darkly obsessive quest for power as in the continuing saga of Montrovant, the main character of David Niall Wilson's "The Grail's Covenant" trilogy. The ability to maintain the same high quality of narrative power and compelling characterization as in the first book comes across as accomplished by the author with consummate ease. As a writer myself (both professionally and for my own personal enjoyment -- or, more accurately, personal compulsive urge), I know that it was likely an exhausting outpouring of intensity into the completion of the work, but Wilson never failed to make it look easy and natural, and I was sucked into the second installment of this trilogy as fully as the first. ( )