Necropolis

This book is the third Gaunt's Ghosts instalment by Dan Abnett, and it's a doozy. The Tanith First are sent to the hive-world Verghast, where what had been thought prior to be a local war between competing aristocratic heritages has metastasized into a full-blown Chaos uprising. A number of Verghastite locals are introduced - Captain Ban Daur, mine-worker Gol Kolea, hab-ganger Tona Criid, smeltery-worker Agun Soric, to name a few - gee, I wonder if any of them will join any of the Imperial Guard regiments should Vervunhive prevail in defending itself against the onslaught of cultists and woe machines? No spoilers. This is the grimmest book yet. Death wipes its arse on every page, and you find yourself genuinely thinking everyone might die. I've thought before that Abnett has a slightly-irritating habit of ending his books too quickly - they build to a massive climax about two-thirds through, then that climax sustains its intensity until there's literally only like five pages of novel left, and you're wondering "what the feth is going to happen?" and then it happens and you're like "oh." Which is probably true to war. Victory is always unforeseeable until it occurs, and once it's occurred, you've won, so there's no need for the chroniclers of war to keep the cameras rolling.