The third book in the Vega Jane series has Vega Jane, her friends Delph and Petra, and her loyal dog, Harry Two, on the move once more, this time into a more modern and seemingly friendly world. But it's not long before it becomes clear that the city of True and the surrounding environs are full of pitfalls, not the least of which are the evil Maladons and their sophisticated yet brutal leader, Endemen. But there is also comfort, too, as Vega Jane stumbles into her magical ancestral home, and her relationship with Delph becomes more romantic (though not without pushback from her frenemy Petra). As in the previous books, there is plenty of nonstop action here, though sometimes readers might wish it would at least slow down. Those who expected this to be the last book in a trilogy (and that's the way it seems to be going throughout) will be caught off guard by some of the final action. This has a very Harry Potter like feel, so give it to those fans.

Vega Jane (The Finisher; The Keeper) and companions survived the Quag only to become lost in True, where residents are entranced into peaceful complacency. Vega Jane now faces a battle that carries the fate of the whole world. Baldacci's third installment struggles with uneven pacing and unusual dialect that can pull readers out of the story; a strong, endearing heroine helps compensate for these flaws.

Vega Jane and her cohorts at last find the home base of the evil wizards who have conquered the world—and discover that rebellion carries a high price.Having escaped the town of Wormwood and the spell-protected wilderness around it in search of her family, newly fledged sorceress Vega Jane now confronts the Maladons—malign magicians who have ruled everywhere else for eight centuries over a populace brainwashed into mindless contentment. Working from a mansion that the head Maladon visited in olden times but is now somehow hidden (internal consistency is not a priority here), Vega Jane recruits and trains a small army of magicians to fight back while effecting rescues and eluding multiple ambushes with help from a ring of invisibility and spells that involve pointing wands and shouting words such as "Embattlemento" and "Engulfiado" that beg (unfavorable) comparison to J.K. Rowling. Baldacci mixes adolescent snogging, animate housewares, another talking book (see Volume 2, The Keeper, 2015), and bad guys uniformly dressed in pinstripe suits and brown bowlers into a tale that also features casual killing, torture, and forked-tongued demons. Throughout, he continues to demonstrate that he doesn't have Rowling's knack for mixing sly fun with truly dark doings. Moreover, repeated glimpses of characters with dark or brown (or "walnut") skin are at best weak efforts to inject diversity into the cast. A quest fantasy that moves further into mediocrity despite plenty of borrowed notions and tropes. (glossary) (Fantasy. 11-13)