7th April 2024

The second adventure of Locke Lamora finds him in a new city, with a new plan, and new things to go wrong with it.

This is a heist novel, but one that gets so complex, with lies upon lies stacked up like Inception, to the extent that every now and then I had to pause and remind myself how many layers deep we were.

I really enjoyed it. Lynch has created some really engaging characters and a rich world with so much to explore, and with really quite light fantasy elements that almost could not be there but be some sort of meta-scam.

My only criticism of the novel is the opening. It starts with the classic trope of presenting a scene from much later in the story, but out of context, which feels like it’s just trying to trick the reader into keeping going to find where it fits. Instead, this is just confusing and utterly unnecessary as the plot proper is so engaging right from the start.

I enjoyed this revisit to this world, and have book three lined up on the shelf - although I suspect it will be a few years before I get to it.

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2nd January 2020

I don’t remember where I first heard about this book, but when I spotted it on the shelves of the book shop I scooped it up and have been waiting for read it for a few months. It opened with an introduction by Joe Abercrombie, who described this book as better than his. I did not get on with the Abercrombie novel I read a few years ago, so was immediately wary - but it turns out I didn’t need to worry.

The story dives into excellence, beginning as it means to go on. The opening chapters in particular are entertaining and do brilliantly to set up the characters and story. The world is left with broad brush strokes, as a lot isn’t immediately of relevance, and the story focusses on the characters and their activities.

Lynch has crafted a masterful tale with interwoven timelines that reveal just the right information to make the plot work and keep the reader entertained. The pace really picks up as the story unfolds as well, with events coming so rapidly that I was shocked and had to take a break from all the drama!

A really great opening novel in this series, and I can’t wait to pick up the sequels and continue reading.

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