The third book of the Parasol Protectorate series opens with a disgraced Alexia, once again in her mother’s home, living with her step half-sisters, exiled from Woosley Castle and her love husband Lord Conall Maccon.

Desperate to clear her name, Alexia delves into the nature of the soulless and the roguish history of her late father. Pursued by assassins and vampire of ill repute, Alexia’s quest takes her across the continent until she is confronted by Italians armed with pesto. With solutions to former mysteries becoming mysteries in their own right, Alexia discovers that there is more to her father and herself than she had suspected.

Blameless, I am forced to confess, is the book that worked the least for me in the series. Perhaps it is the aspiring writer in my, but there are times when the plotting seemed as fixed as the expression upon a statue. Conall spends a great deal of time in the story drunk, and it felt as though this was a device of Ms. Carriger because a sober Conall presented too many obstacles to the plot as conceived. Equally troubling to me was the climatic resolution of the book. Where the previous two books turned nicely on Alexia’s sharp mind and social fearlessness to resolve the conundrums, Blameless presents a resolution where Alexia felt less a driving force and more a passenger to the plot.

These faults aside, and as with any review your mileage may vary, the characters are charming, both the old and new, the dialog witty and sharp, the comedy impeccable. The sales figures for this book would seem to indicate that the issues that bothered me were of trivial or even invisible to Ms. Carriger’s fan-base at large. I myself read this book as quickly as the others, delighting in the chases, and the new and eccentric characters brought to our attention.

Next week I review the last published book in the series, Heartless before the release of the conclusion with Timeless.