The Anubis Gates is great fun; there's some real nastiness lurking underneath that occasionally bubbles to the surface, but in the end Evil is defeated and the Good Guys go triumphantly into the future. On Stranger Tides is somewhat similar, maybe a little darker and a little deeper. The Stress of Her Regard is... dark. Very dark. Evils are averted, but the best the heroes can say is that they survived. The book took me a couple of readings before I came to like it, but it's worth the effort. (Part of it is that TAG and OST are plainly in the same universe; TSoHR is in another universe, similar in overall conception but with a bitterer flavor. Overcoming expectations was part of my problem with it.)

I'd say try to find those first two, first. Last Call is more like them in mood than it is like the other.