It's a cool book for a number of reasons. The prose is awesome. It walks the spectrum from vulgar to pretentious and back to paint the city of Camorr and its people that walk the same spectrum. Scott Lynch has a talent for words. The text evokes the smells and moods and it is helped by the wonderful names.

For me the made-up names are important. I value the names that are not cliche fantasy names, that feel like they have logic and history behind them, and that sound good in the end. Camorr, Talisham, Emberlain, Capa Barsavi, Don Lorenzo Salvara, Doña Sofia, Lukas Fehrwight, etc. Great names! They have a basis in real-world languages, and they are more evocative for that.

The world that's built has a strong original atmosphere, but functionally it's mostly a generic dark medieval fantasy. There's a lot of detail about geography and cuisine and politics and herbs and a lot of elderglass. But the only novelty in terms of its effects is magic. The magic practiced by the Bondsmagi appears to be extremely rare (suggesting that some apparent impossibility might be the work of a Bondsmage will get you laughed at) and practically limitless. They are like gods for hire. This is a strange setup, and while it's not examined too deeply in this first book, it's enough to get you thinking.

The structure of the book with interludes and occasional changes of viewpoints is okay. It keeps things interesting.

So how's the plot and the characters? I thought it would be a bit better. Locke is this super thief. He proves that as a child, he proves that with the Salvaras. But then he stops being clever. Okay, he cannot do much against a Bondsmage. But why summon the mage just to get tortured? Why believe that the Gray King told him the true plan for the Echo Hole meeting? Why believe that the Salvaras wanted to invite him to the Raven's Reach party out of their fondness for him? Did he forget that they knew he was robbing them? He told them so!

In the end of course he still wins. Is it because he starts being clever again? He does start being clever for a hundred pages when he's got to get a fancy suit. But beyond that he's just relying on deus ex machina to get him through the hard times. Why would he not, if it works so well! Half-dead and never a competent fighter, he still manages to beat the main villain and long-time pirate captain in hand-to-hand combat.

We have a crew of old friends doing amazing heists together and bantering non-stop. Loyalty and friendship are big themes. Yet 60% of the crew gets killed off without much reason. They knew they would likely be attacked and their plan was to just sit at home with all their treasure and wait? It's like the author forgot about Calo and Galdo when writing the ending and he fixed it by going back through the draft and killing them off off-screen after their last mention.


I felt that much of the good and the bad that happened to Locke was not fairly deserved. It was a fun read though when I was not overthinking the plot.