Because oh boy, have Asti and Verci got themselves into trouble. They've been packed off to Quarrygate, a prison that makes it a coin flip whether you'll ever see the outside again. And to add insult to injury, it wasn't even their own actions that got them there. Now they need to try and break out of maximum security, and find out whoi put them there and why - and then express some robust opinions on that topic. In parallel, Verci's wife, Raych, is putting together an unlikely band to figure out what happened to Verci, and perform a heist to pay for the help they need to pull him out of Quarrygate - if his own escape doesn't happen first.
That sounds like a lot, and you know what, it is. This is a book which isn't afraid to hit the ground at pace. The characters are moving fast enough that they don't often have time to catch their breath. The audience, likewise, is pulled along in their wake, "just one more page" turning into the wee hours of the morning. I want to take a moment to shout out the really tight story, which flips between viewpoints fluidly, and doesn't waste time on ten words where one will do. It pulls you in with some wonderfully crafted hooks, then won't let go; everything is connected, and details feed back into the larger story in a way that rewards close attention.
And the world, oh the world remains as meticulously planned and lavishly described as ever. Quarrygate is a hell, level on level on level of hard doors and harder men. Criminals of all stripes recidivists, alchemists, rogue mages, con-men, the occasional political. They're here, in between walls designed ot stop them causing any more trouble. The guards, with hard stares and brutally efficient security measures, are as much people as their charges. But the prison, the prison has a soul all its own, one built on years of screams in the dark, pleas of innocence and guilt, an institution grown uncaring in its lack of grace. It feels, not to put too fine a point on it, like a prison, like a place where you definitely don't want to end up. And in its institutional craftings, in its injustices unthinking, in its lights out times and checkpoints and deeper, quieter, deadlier sub-levels there's an echo of our own lives, too. In the way the institution eats people and disgorges them when it pleases, yes, that too. We can see an echo in ourselves. It's a wonderful bit of world-building.
It's shared by the wonderfully lavish art gallery and shopping areas that Raych and her team visit for their heist. Where Quarrygate is bare stone, these are ornate draperies and statuettes. Brutal guards are replaced with obsequious but hard-eyed security. Cell doors with drop-bars and alarms , prisoners with patrons. There's a fascinating duality here, that suggests these are two sides to the same coin, the sharper shards of prison life peeking through the velvet ropes. The cost bourne to let artists and artistes live uncomplicated lives. But anyway. These rich towers and their inhabitants are just as much institutions as Quarrygate, but with a shinier coat of paint; and the glitz and the glam dazzles evcn as it doesn't distract from the riches within.
We've talked about the Rynax brothers at length before, and what I've said there holds true again. They're smart, hard men, trying to put things behind them, put damage and risk behind them and live normal lives. But trouble just keeps on finding them. Watching them fight their pasts and their demons to win through remains a joy; but the unexpected star of the book is Raych, who takes the centre stage this time, not just a Rynax supporting spouse, but the mastermind behind a heist, put together with clockwork precision and a cool skill and ruthlessness her husband might envy. Raych fights out of love, and with that, all things are possible. Seeing her take steps to do what she feels must be done, finding things inside herself that she hasn't needed before, resources and talents dug up anew, it's a genuinely joyful experience. These are people, not players on a stage, their flawed humanity brought to bear to mirror our own.
Which is to say, it's a bloody good book. Greta characterisation. Great world-building. And prison breaks and heists and sword fights and espionage and double crosses and triple crosses and skulduggery and magic and, you know, general chaos. All that good stuff. Any Maradaine fan owes it to themselves to read this one, and if you're not a Maradaine fan, you should be.
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