Falcio and his band of merry misfits have been on the run for a couple of weeks, trying to come up with a plan to get the late king's bastard daughter on the throne. Complicating things are Falcio's recent poisoning, which paralyzes him for a longer stretch of time each morning; the Tailor, who has her own agenda; the Dukes, who are recalcitrant as always and are being murdered; and Tris, who's just as mad as always and wants the throne more than anything. 
 The intrigue in Knight's Shadow is even more complicated than in Traitor's Blade, and easily more frustrating if only because everybody keeps laughing at Falcio about how little he knows instead of telling him what he needs to know. The layers of betrayals and counter-betrayals will make your head spin, at least until explanations come out toward the end of the book (then you might just be mad at everyone). 
 The second-to-last major event in the book is awful, and not in an I-hate-this-book way, but in an OMG-Falcio-no way. If you're at all squeamish about themes like torture, rape, sadism, and murder, I'd go into this very carefully. 
 This is the third middle-of-the-series book I've read in about as many months that subverted my expectations about the quality of middle books. I'd love to see this as a trend that will continue, that middle books will become just as wonderfully delightful as the first and third in the trilogy.