The title of The Lies of Locke Lamora has intrigued me for years and I’m happy to have finally read it! 

The book follows a group thieves calling themselves the Gentleman Bastards as they embark on their biggest venture yet, heisting a fortune from the elite through intricate deception. As you may imagine, not everything goes according to plan and a new player emerges into the complex societal order of the city of Camorr. 

As a place Camorr is quite unique among the settings fantasy novels have led me: a kind of medieval Venice with floating carnivals, various religious orders and hints of alchemy. Indeed, I would love to see an adaptation of this just to visually experience the world! 

In addition to the world building, I found the plot and dialogue to be the highlights of Lynch’s debut novel. It’s certainly more plot heavy than what I’m used to in recent years, and unfortunately it did get in the way of character development. Even Locke Lamora himself felt distant and it was hard to connect to him. Not to mention finding any female characters worth a major role – the two most central ones were either used as a plot device or merely featured in discussions, never to be actually seen. Or maybe I’m too harsh. It’s just that there’s so many cool female side characters I wanted to learn more from, but who didn’t get much, if any, backstory. 

Nonetheless, I was throughoutly entertained and have reserved the following installments of the trilogy from the library to be read not too far in the future.