“Gods, I love this place,” Locke said, drumming his fingers against his thighs. “Sometimes I think this whole city was put here simply because the gods must adore crime. Pickpockets rob the common folk, merchants rob anyone they can dupe, Capa Barsavi robs the robbers and the common folk, the lesser nobles rob nearly everyone, and Duke Nicovante occasionally runs off with his army and robs the shit out of Tal Verrar or Jerem, not to mention what he does to his own nobles and common folk.”
“So that makes us robbers of robbers.” said Bug, “who pretend to be robbers working for a robber of other robbers.”
“Yes, we do sort of screw the pretty picture up, don’t we?”
- Title: The Lies of Locke Lamora
- Author: Scott Lynch
- Genre: Epic Fantasy/Sword & Sorcery
- Year: 2006
Hype can be a dangerous thing. With all the rave reviews for Scott Lynch’s debut novel percolating through genre circles, it’s only natural that a certain level of resistance and criticism might develop. It’s only natural that some cynical and jaded reviewers, perhaps the sort that actually put off reading the book for three years or so (ahem), might find issue with it. It can’t be as good as they say, all that hype must be the product of starvelings who have never read beyond Eragon and Terry Brooks, and wouldn’t know a decent fantasy if it poked them in the backside with a +3 Shortsword of Attention-Grabbing.
Well, here is a case where the hype is justified. The Lies of Locke Lamora is certainly one of the most assured debuts of recent years, and one of the most entertaining and compulsively readable fantasies I’ve come across.
Lies is a fantasy caper novel, something like a cross between The Sting and the adventures of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. It tells the story of Locke Lamora and his gang of elite conmen, the Gentlemen Bastards, in alternating story threads that deal both with his early life as a guttersnipe and Bastard-in-training, and contemporary events that see his resourcefulness tested to the utmost. Lynch excels at weaving these twin threads together in a meaningful way, so that one informs the other thematically or narratively by relating the lessons of Locke’s past to the events of the present. Thus, while the road to Locke’s maturation could have been paved with a collection of isolated, if interesting, actions, it is instead freighted with a series of events that are given real significance in the larger scope of the novel.
And ‘scope’ is certainly a word one needs to use when talking about the Lies of Locke Lamora, as it’s a big (700+ pages in my mass market edition) and multi-layered novel that likes to spread out and explore various facets of Lynch’s world. The setting is the city-state of Camorr, reminiscent of Renaissance Venice with it’s canals and plazas, although Lynch’s city also includes mysterious towers left over from a long-gone race, gladiatorial matches between shark and man, gardens of razor-sharp glass flowers, and beasts of burden rendered docile by a personality-destroying drug. Evocative place names such as Shades Hill, Coin-Kissers Row, and The Cauldron describe a city with a lived-in feel, full of quirks of place and locale that bring Camorr to life. It’s elaborate and consistently interesting, and any lover of fantasy who enjoys the feeling of immersing themselves in another world will have a fine time taking in the sights.
The main action of the story follows and adult Locke and his companions on an elaborate, high-stakes con. The Gentlemen Bastards themselves exist as a con within a con — officially they are a small time bunch of religious hucksters, pretending to be priests and relieving the pious of their coin. This is how Capa Barsavi, the godfather of the criminal gangs in Camorr, and the rest of the underworld looks at the Bastards. But, it turns out Locke’s elite gang are actually the most successful — and richest — conmen in the city, and Locke himself has achieved a level of infamy as the mysterious ‘Thorn of Camorr.’ Masters of disguise, persuasion, and trickery, the Gentlemen Bastards target the wealthiest nobles and merchants of the city for big money.
These cons themselves are deftly handled, from the small stakes stuff the Bastards did as kids, to the involved and ongoing con that is the main part of the action in the first half of the book. Lynch has a great sense of pace when describing these elaborate capers, and lovers of the vicarious thrills of such gamesmanship will have a lot of fun. The wise-cracking and assured dialog of the protagonists, too, adds to the novel’s overall breezy pace, and may indeed by the strongest tool in Lynch’s toolbox. Lies delivers ample servings of humor, imagination, and suspense to create a page-turner of a novel.
Things do not all go according to plan in Locke’s world, however, and soon the Bastards find themselves the target of the mysterious Gray King — and Locke himself is forced to use his skills in the interloper’s service. The book takes a darker and more violent turn as a revenge-fueled Gray King and the powerful Bondsmage in his employ murder their way through the underworld. Locke has to make some difficult decisions in this confrontation, and perhaps does not always make the right ones, and in the end we see that he is not so invincible, after all.
The Lies of Locke Lamora will have something for every fan of fantasy and imaginative fiction — and will satisfy many fans of thrillers and heist fiction as well. With an appealing cast of characters and clever handling of the con game, swashbuckling action and imaginative world-building, Lies is escapism of the highest order. The first part of a projected ambitious multi-book saga, Lies does leave some threads untied by book’s end, and openly points the way to a sequel, but is nonetheless a discreet chapter in the life of its central character. The second book in the sequence, Red Seas Under Red Skies, has been out for some time, with a third, Republic of Thieves, due out sometime next year. Certainly a series, and an author, to keep an eye on.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve meant to start this one for a long time now, I do like the concept and your review.
It’s a fun book, David, and certainly flies by in comparison with it’s length.
Finally you review a book I’ve also reviewed. We agree in its fun and ease of consumption. I was lucky enough to pre-release review this one for Random House…though I’ve yet to read my copy of book #2.
Yes there were “Evocative place names” …everywhere at the onset — every street, bridge, building, city sector, wind, past era, time of the day, sword, character…
Don’t worry, I got used to them and enjoyed the book. My only true peeve was the magical way that ‘long-gone race’ just happened to have left something behind that fit what was needed at several key plot points. Too deus ex machina for me…