Well, I wasn't hanging around here until long after Mur left, so I knew it was coming long before I hit that point in the marathon. But I was still sad to see her go. I liked her readings and also her intros (once she loosened up). But I also like Alasdair's intros very much, so no real complaint here.
This story was good, and I liked the twists, but I felt too often like I was playing "catch up" trying to figure out what was possible in this world. There was no indication for the longest time at the beginning that any magic was possible, just rich book collectors. When the first magic showed up I had to stop and re-evaluate everything. After that it was hard to keep the tension up, because it kept adding new magical elements that I hadn't known existed. So when a new obstacle came up I just thought "He'll just snap his fingers and a new previously unexplained magic spell will come into play).