Because spelling is my Waterloo, I avoided this book for the longest time, even though it was popping up everywhere, because a book about a Scottish lake seemed profoundly boring. If you have been too, thank god, because I'd hate to be the only one that dumb.

Locke Lamora is the name of our protagonist, who we follow from his start as a precociously larcenous six year-old to a masterfully larcenous adult. It's a bit like [book:Oliver Twist], if Oliver hadn't been such an obnoxiously moral little snot, a bit like [book:Illusion] by [author:Paula Volsky], without the lurking dread, and a bit like [book:Death of the Necromancer] by [author:Martha Wells] without the female characters. I found, no matter how out of control events spiralled, I remained fairly confident that Lamora would eventually come out on top.

Locke lives and fleeces his prey in a near-Venice on the border of SF and Fantasy: Camorr is built on top of and within the ruins of a city abandoned by aliens. He works at the head of a brotherhood [sic] of Gentlemen [sic] Bastards.

On which editorial sarcasm, let me expand: There is one female character who is explicitly aligned with Locke. She is Sabetha, the woman Locke loves, and who is entirely present by her absence. She is referred to as the reason that Locke doesn't seek out prostitutes, and he is much mocked for his devotion to her. However, she never makes an in-person appearance, and her conspicuous absence doesn't do a lot to deflect a homoerotic reading of Locke's friendship with Jean Tannen.

The book takes a very non-judgemental approach to Locke's larceny and occasional murder: Locke may regret or not the deaths he is responsible for, and avenge the deaths of his friends or allies, but the only real difference between any of the thefts he is subject to and thefts he perpetrates is how they affect him, and the book doesn't really pretend otherwise. Locke manages to be likable withal.

A fun read, if the by turns grim and cheerful amorality will not bother you. I would like to read the sequels when they come out.