It’s always enjoyable when a book unexpectedly comes out of nowhere to grab me (err…”my attention”, that is…grab my attention. I’m not talking about those instances when books come flying out of dark alleys and drag me back to a demonic den of bookdom [I hate it when that happens!]), but that is exactly what transpired with the first novel by Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora. I read it with absolutely no expectations (I probably didn’t even read the back cover) and found myself rather entranced with both the characters and the story.

That story (what a great segue!) follows the eponymous Locke Lamora and his small team of con artists/thieves as they plan and scheme their way to obtaining as much wealth as they can from the nobility of Camorr, a mystical and magical medieval-set Venice-esque city. The Gentlemen Bastards, as they are known, find themselves attempting to pull off their grandest scheme yet whilst simultaneously trying to remain completely invisible to both the nobility themselves and the Duke of Camorr’s secret police who watch over them, yet still remaining under the radar of Capa Barsavi, the local mob boss, who thinks the Gentlemen Bastards are just a small group of house thieves. All this while, despite their best efforts, being pulled into the clash between the Capa and the mysterious figure known as the Grey King, whose intentions are not fully known. If this all sounds very complex and convoluted, it is, which is both good and bad for the book.

There is enough going on that the story moves forward rapidly – it has to in order to keep up with all the characters and plot points, and it does so pretty well. Despite the complexity, the reader is never particularly lost, with the exception of some of the specific motivations for certain characters (which are revealed as the story progresses). All the different plot elements made me want to keep reading and find out how things will get resolved, which is one of the reasons why I found the book enjoyable. But at the same time, the complexity of the plot was right on the line of being too complex; not because it would have been too hard to follow, but because it would become a case of Yet Another Thing (YAT), i.e. when a story just keeps piling things on to the main character(s) such that it becomes ridiculous. It’s not that a person lost a job while trying to put a kid through college, it’s that a person lost a job while trying to put a kid through college, their spouse is cheating, their neighbor is suing, the house now has a 100 foot deep pit in the basement that opened up, the car was wrecked, and a leg has been infected with a flesh-eating bacteria. Oh, and the dog died. It’s Yet Another Thing.

I don’t think The Lies of Locke Lamora gets to be that bad…but it gets close, and I could understand why some might think so. While everything eventually fits together quite well, with only a few loose ends to be tied (quite possibly purposefully left, as this is the first book in an expected 7 book series, though thus far only the second book has been released), I wonder if Lynch wouldn’t have been better off simplifying the story a bit, allowing more time for the characters to be introduced before everything completely goes to hell.

Thus, because of the way the plot is structured with Locke and his crew being pulled in different directions, it is imperative that the reader like them. If you don’t care about Locke, and just find him an annoying, conceited, selfish bastard of a character, then you won’t care about all that is going wrong for him or his attempts to make it right with wits and resources intact--and thus you won’t like this book. If, however, you find Locke to be an annoying, conceited, selfish bastard…but in a good way, then you will definitely be pulled into the story and be hardpressed to stop reading until you’ve reached the end.

I, for one, fall into the latter category. I’ve always enjoyed stories about a group of con artists putting together a grand, elaborate theft – something along the lines of Ocean’s Eleven, and this book was similar in my mind, and thus, I enjoyed it. I know others who didn’t, though, falling into the aforementioned former category. [Uh huh. – Ed.]

A few other things of note about the book: The story is not actually continuous. Between each main chapter is an “interlude” that jumps back in time and describes how Locke first joined up with the Gentlemen Bastards, how he trained to be the con artist that he is, how other members of the crew joined, etc. These interludes are handled well, as they were interesting and didn’t feel disjointed from the rest of the book. Later in the book, however, these interludes are no longer about background of the characters, but random background of the city. That felt disjointed. It wasn’t a big problem, but it was a little odd.

Bottom line, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and do recommend it, but also realize that with both the characters and the plot, a fine line is being walked between being both intriguing and enjoyable on one side, and failing completely as a story on the other. So while I liked it and look forward to future books, I do have to say, if you’ll forgive me for being all geek-acronym-y (at Geek Speak Magazine? I can’t imagine!): YMMV.

  -- K. Burtt