Caine took some big risks with this book and it felt more like the Morganville I fell in love with all those books ago. The last few books had seen a sad mopey Shane and a pitiful cowardly Amelie. Shane is still a little mopey and Amelie is still acting like a scared little girl, but the rest of Morganville has said "Enough!" and started kicking butt. 
 Last Breath is full of action and even introduces a new BIG BAD (as if blood sucking vamps wasn't enough). There was a lot less teen angst and a lot more hard hitting action and horror - all the stuff that made me love Morganville in the first place. 
 While Last Breath doesn't end on a total cliffhanger, there's definitely a lot left unresolved. And, unlike most of the previous Morganville books, this one doesn't totally stand on its own. Most of the books in the series you can pick up and read, even if you've never read any of the series before, but this one really does require some backstory to not be totally lost.