I think this is one of the few Mystery books where the author of the character's core novels also wrote it, which makes the side characters feel more true to how they were in the mainline ones compared to other Mystery novels I've read. I really liked this one- high stakes because it's a war time (Caroline is actually shot at...!), and mostly uses characters from previous books. This actually starts pretty immediately after the end of the sixth core novel, so it's a good move to go to if you're fresh from that. I appreciated Hosea having a larger role here- he's present in the core books, but here he teaches Caroline that war is complicated, and sailors who escaped from slavery might have a different perspective on who deserves their loyalty. It's a shame Caroline's tenure was short-lived; initially I thought, "hm, the War of 1812 is a very niche subject to do a whole AG series on" but it very capably did a dive into the topic at an age-appropriate level, and I learned more with these books than I did MaryEllen's (I should stop moaning about how ME's are my least fave, but they are, for now!) ( )