Mass Market Paperback, 368 pages
Published Aug. 30, 2010 by Del Rey.
As a wealthy few gather to bid on a predator capable of destroying all life on earth, the sorcerers of the Twenty Palace Society mobilize to stop them. Caught up in the scramble is Ray Lilly, the lowest of the low in the society-an excar thief and the expendable assistant of a powerful sorcerer. Ray possesses exactly one spell to his name, along with a strong left hook. But when he arrives in the small town in the North Cascades where the bidding is to take place, the predator has escaped and the society's most powerful enemies are desperate to recapture it. All Ray has to do is survive until help arrives. But it may already be too late.
Harry Connolly, and the Twenty Palaces series merit wider recognition; the series being among the best of that particular flavour of urban fantasy. Good world-building, excellent pacing (more so the series than this entry), warts and all characters and a memorable, mind-fucking big bad here. What's not to like? Perhaps a little too long, but a cut above most of its rivals.
