The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

[meganbmoore]

The island city of Camorr has two ruling classes. One ruling class, of course, is the nicely shiny and legal aristocracy. The other is the legitimized underworld of thieves and killers, ruled by the iron fist of Capa Barsavi. Among his underlings is Locke Lamora, a "priest" who leads a small gang of thieves known as the Gentleman Bastards.

There’s Locke Lamora himself, of course, a former street urchin who was such a good thief as a child that the Thiefmaker of Camorr, who trained all the thieves in the city, once got legal permission to kill him. Then there’s Jean Tannen, a man good with numbers, but best with his fist and hatchets. Next up are the wisetalking twins, Galo and Caldo. They’re deliberately indistinguishable. Finally, there’s Bug, Locke’s apprentice.

What Capa Barsavi knows is that they’re a loyal gang who bring in good money and don’t try to trick him by turning in the exact same amount of money every month, and that Locke swore himself into the service of Nazca, Barsavi’s daughter, as a child. (Purely platonic. Locke seems to have angsted himself sterile after a love affair gone wrong with Sabetha, the sixth member of the Gentleman Bastards, who is mentioned a lot in this book, but never seen.) What he doesn’t know is that their mentor, Father Chains, trained them to be the greatest con artists Camorr has ever seen, and that they have several fortunes stashed in the basement, and no idea what to do with the money…it’s just fun to get it.

Someone else, however, has learned about the money in the basement. The Grey King, who wants to unseat Barsavi and take his position. The Grey King blackmails Locke into impersonating him in a meeting with Barsavi, and then murders Nazca to make sure Barsavi shows up. Obviously, this won’t go over well with Locke or Barsavi. But then Barsavi double crosses "The Grey King," and The Grey King doublecrosses Locke, and by the end of the day, Locke is ready to destroy both their lives. One takes care of the other, and the rest is up to Locke. Meanwhile, The Spider, the LEGAL duke’s righthand man, is hunting for Locke’s conman persona, and Locke still has one of his best cons ever only half finished.

Instead of a hero who is heroic or chosen or troubled or conflicted, Lynch has a hero who’s just really, really smart, and actually isn’t a hero so much as a person stuck in a bad spot, trying not to get anyone else killed while he gets himself out of it. We also see many of his cons in great detail, including an amazingly elaborate plot to simply acquire a set of clothing. Most of these I could telegraph, especially a double impersonation early on that I’m not sure I should have caught on to, but loved anyway. Sandwiched between chapters of the main plot are flashbacks to Locke’s childhood, detailing his origins (from when he met the Thiefmaker on) and his training under Father Chains, and the bonds he formed with the other Gentleman Bastards. That is, until the killing starts, at which point, the flashbacks become stories about how it’s a really bad idea to piss off the people of Camorr.

In a way, the characters are a flipside of Simon R. Green’s characters. Green characters are "badass badass badass and they know it and can back it up…oh, and they’re pretty clever." Lynch’s characters are "clever clever clever and they know it and can back it up…oh, and please don’t piss them off, they can be pretty badass, too." Plus, the person you want to piss of the least is the little old lady knitting in the corner. It is an awesometastic book of awesomeness.

I do have one complaint, though, and that’s that what caused Locke to get the death sentence as a child was his unintentionally causing the death of other children. As penance, Father Chains forces him to wear his death sentence around his neck, until he’s paid a hefty death-offering for each child. We know that Locke eventually pays this off, and from the final plotline, we know that the death-offering as a penance and way of honoring the dead is something extremely important to him, but it’s barely mentioned after Father Chains passes sentence on him. Like his relationship with Sabetha, I kept expecting to get more attention, but never did. Sabetha, though, I suspect will be covered in another book.