“This is a sequel to "The Lies of Locke Lamora" - a swashbuckly heist novel in a fantasy world that seems inspired by George R R Martin, China Mieville, and pulp adventure fiction.
Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen are now embroiled in anoither con scheme, trying to lighten the purse of the richest and most powerful crime baron of Tal Verrar. Soon, they attract the attention of a military dictator wannabe, and the Bondsmagi of Karthain have unfinished business with Locke, too...
Starting out in a very similar style to "Lies of...", the book thankfully soon abandons the dual narrative strands / flashback gimmick and becomes much more linear. That line, however, is not the plot line you would expect. Rather than a con / heist novel, it becomes a novel about pirates! Shawshbuckling ahoy, me mateys. The sudden turn into a completely different direction left me wondering when the main plot strands would kick in - and the first three quarters of the book felt like a loooong (but highly enjoyable) introduction, until I realised that this was it - I was already reading the main plot, I just had not realised that this would be the theme of the book.
It is a superior work to the first (largely because flashbacks were abandoned, keeping the story more tense). It is still well written, and still not quite as convincing as Martin or Mieville. The writing still strays into linguistic choices that are ok, but not great. (One would have hoped for more colourful swearwords than motherfucker).
I would recommend this series so far. Still, a lot remains unresolved. I suppose this is all part of the plan for writing a longer series, but it does leave the individual books only partially satisfying this reader's desire for closure.”
Robert H wrote this review Thursday, April 9 2009.
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