Amidst the occasional cliches and cheese there was a lot of rich texture to be found. The plot itself didn't leave me with many questions, but the introduction to the complex world it's set in sure did. I want to know more about Astropaths! What's the history of the space marines and the Emperor's Children? I know these weren't necessarily inventions of the author (as the book is set in the richly developed Warhammer 40k universe), but he does a great job of introducing the reader to them in such a way that you just have to go out and learn more about them. Our protagonist, Eisenhorn, is the kind of good guy that it's fun to root for. And his close group of comrades flesh out our cast of common characters nicely. This book will probably remain a bit of a guilty-pleasure for me, unless the following installments manage to raise the intellectual bar a bit. This is pulpy genre fiction, where I usually prefer my genre fiction (the only fiction I read) to be a bit more mature. Still, I'm sold, and I'll definitely be reading the rest of the trilogy and more of the Warhammer 40k books.