Matteo Bortolotti’s Reviews > A Darker Shade of Magic > Status Update

Magic and flaws are too arbitrary, it feels contrived and not engaging, it is also annoying when both villains are killed and it's not clear how and why that happened.

Seriously, he first boasts that his guards won't do anything for he wants to kill Kell himself, than chastize how the sister wants him alive saying he's too dangerous for that, than gloats about how he cherishes violence in itself and Kell and Holland not doing is their limit.
In rapid succeasion, one right after the other.
As a result he comes of as less threathening and his actions as contrived.

White London is established as dangerous, competing constantly and full of predators, it makes no sense that it'd favor a thirst for violence over pragmatism.
Particularly since it directly cobtraddicts Kell's first time in the city, when he explains that power alone will make you a target and survival depends on balance.
Athos also switches between pragmatic and violent thrice in a paragraph.

But why did we see Holland kill apparently of his own volition if we had to feel sorry for him?

Why can Kell accept that Rhy has heard about him having a piece of Black London but not that he knows it's a stone? Couldn't it be part of the rumor?