As others have pointed out, the character development of Tommo's family appears hasty and leaves much to be desired. Hinetitama, Tommo's daughter, is a character and personality that I began to cherish, only to have Courtenay abruptly stop writing about her. Moreover, Hinetitama's children are never fully developed as distinct individuals. I also had a keen interest in learning more about Joshua Solomon, David Solomon's grandchild, but unfortunately, I never really got to know much about him either.
While the war elements in this story are engaging enough, I found that I had a better understanding of characters like "Wordy Smith", "Library", and "Crow" compared to our protagonist, Ben Teekleman. Although I am aware that a significant amount of research went into the plots regarding Ben's adventures overseas, I simply couldn't bring myself to care. In fact, I was rather distracted. I constantly found myself wondering: What about Hawk? What about Victoria? What about the Potato Factory? Unlike the other books in this trilogy, which enabled readers to skip from country to country to follow various characters, once the story shifted to Ben, he became the sole focus.
When I realized that I only had 50 pages remaining and still had not heard anything about the characters who were still in Australia, it dawned on me that I was never going to get the conclusion I so desired for my beloved Hawk.
In essence, this book was passable to read, but it was ultimately disappointing in its conclusion.