Finally, a Chrestomanci story that deals with young Christopher, rather than dealing with Cat (when Christopher is the grown-up Chrestomanci). I have been quite intrigued with Christopher and Millie since reading "The Lives of Christopher Chant" about, oh, 10 years ago, and was delighted to read this book and find it was about their teenage years. Of course it is mostly about Conrad, a new character in one of the Related Worlds, but it's got plenty of Christopher to satisfy me. The story was brisk and enjoyable.As usual, one tiny niggle...sometimes in Ms. Jones' books, when she is building up to the climax, a bunch of people come into the story (as with the King's Summoners, police, Gabriel de Witt, etc. near the end of this book) and a lot of things are explained very quickly. I don't consider myself "slow" but I have often felt that Ms. Jones rushes through these explanation scenes a bit too quickly. This book is no exception. The officials all show up, it is quickly announced that some of the people we've been learning about are not what they seem, and then things wind up pretty quickly (people getting taken away, etc.). I always have to go back and carefully reread the parts like that, because they are always a bit sketchy and they seem a bit hastily done. However, that's not going to detract from my 5-star rating, because it only takes a little while to go back and reread that."Year of the Griffin" used to be my favorite DWJ book because I laughed so much while reading it, but "Conrad's Fate" now has that honor. I laughed a lot with this one, too, plus...it has Christopher Chant... :-)