Book completed

Treachery's Tools, by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. Imager Portfolio #10 (internal order #7). This is the second story about Alastar, set 13 years after the first. Now he's married and has a 10-year-old daughter, who shares her parents' formidable magic talents. Yet again, Alastar has to solve the country's political and economic problems. The aristocrats want to reclaim what they saw as their hereditary rights, from before the time 400 years before when Quaeryt's brother-in-law became the rex of the land. Meanwhile, the commercial/industrial class wants more power, although they aren't exactly known for their civic responsibility either. Eventually the aristocrats lead a rebellion, and Alastar has to help the armed forces keep the rebels from seizing the throne. It's nice to have a protagonist who's middle-aged - so often in books like this (including Modesitt's own) the hero is a young man still making his way in the world. I would have liked to spend more time with some of the other characters, but the book was 500 pages as it was.