Another excellent entry in the Rigante series that builds upon and improves on the first. Midnight Falcon jumps ahead 20 years, and the characters from the first novel are older, wiser, and a little colder. Connovar is King, and enemies from the the first book are trusted friends and allies,

With the time jump comes fresh characters and new plotlines. Much less of the story focuses on Conn, with the majority of the novel following his bastard son, Bane, and the son of the Stone merchant, Banouin, from the first novel. These new characters are flawed, deep, and interesting, molded by the experiences of the previous generation. More of the world is explored, with large chunks of the novel taking place in Stone, this world's Rome analogue. It's not incredibly fleshed out, but Gemmell does a nice job contrasting the wealth and industrialism of Stone with the tribalism of the Rigante without ever feeling patronizing.

The writing is as good as ever. Gemmell is a true master of the heroic fantasy genre. He's not writing poetry, and doesn't get lost in the thesaurus, but his writing is always poignant, emotional, and sparse without being dull. 

The book ends with all of the plotlines from the first novel wrapped up nicely, maybe a bit too neatly. There are 2 more books in the series, and I've got no idea where it will go from here, but I'll read anything by David Gemmell.