Despite the fact that there's a spoiler in the book's title, this is probably the best Animorph book so far. I might be biased since this was one of my most read Animorphs as a kid, but it does stand up to rereading. The opening narration is great (succinct, informative, interesting), the story is interesting and complicated.* The battle is definitely the goriest so far.
Just a little discussion under the cut. Spoilers as always.
*Though in trying to figure out if a bat could carry something in its feet while flying I learned that bats can't launch themselves into flight from the ground because their legs are too weak...
They're also always saying that Rachel's bear morph has bad eyesight but that's a myth according to the internet. So she probably would have seen as much of Erek's battle as she claims (with her canon bad bear eyesight, I doubt she would have seen that much of the fight).
This is the book where mass in Z-space is explained.