Locke and his gang of priest thieves are in for the biggest score of their lives. They’ve been conning wealthy merchants out of their money for years, relying on the merchant’s shame to keep their crimes secret. Despite their impressive cons, and newly found riches, they manage to stay largely unnoticed by the local crime lord, Capa Barsavi, by buying small trinkets to pay as tribute.

But it all goes sideways when Locke is kidnapped by the Grey King, a secretive newcomer with a Bondsmage at his command. The Grey King as been killing the Capa Barsavi’s lieutenants to draw him out, culminating with the murder of Barsavi’s only daughter. And when the Capa comes for vengence, the Grey King forces Locke to stand in for him.

Locke and his band of Gentleman Bastards must outwit both sides if they are to survive, and there is no guarantee that they all make it out alive.

Characters

I freaking love Locke. No two ways around it. He’s a mastermind behind the operation, with a mouth to match. The balance of humor and wit, and impeccable style, make for a heady combination that you can’t help but root for him.

The rest of the crew, and the villains, are equal well put together. We get not one, but three antagonists, and they all feel like full, rounded characters that you can believe in. Of the three, the Grey King may be the least interesting, simply because he has an unstoppable wizard at his command.

Plot

Lynch does a phenomenal job of piecing the story together so that we don’t guess what’s going to happen next until we read it. He also manages to keep our heroes scrambling for much of the novel, throwing them from defeat to defeat until the very end.

<Spoiler> I did have a minor quibble with the climax, in that Locke is able to survive seemingly mortal wounds and keep trucking. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great when you see someone push through a wound and keep fighting, but it seemed a bit over the top to have him coming back from multiple of those types of wounds. </Spoiler>

Setting

The city of Camorr is alive and vibrant, and getting to play in it was a treat. This probably overlaps with the plot category, but Lynch sprinkles in bits of flashbacks to give us context and information just when we need it. Each flashback is basically a short story, so from the origin of a Bondsmage, to some of the nuances of the Gentleman Bastards’ techniques, I enjoyed seeing different aspects of the world without feeling like I just had to be told an aside and disrupt the flow of the story. That said, I did start to get a bit tired of seeing the flashbacks right before something happened, just because it felt like too much of a pattern. Not enough to lessen how I enjoyed the novel, but something I’ll watch out for in my own writing.

Tone/Voice

Of all the things to pick on, the tone of the novel may be the one that had me scratching my head. From page one, you can tell this is a heist novel, which is always fine by me. The team works together and plays many of the other characters like fiddles for the first third of the novel.

However, around the end of the first act, we take a much darker turn, and it feels less like a heist and more like a thriller. In some ways, it was a nice change for the heist genre, but I was a bit caught off guard. Lynch’s writing and voice made up for the shift, and enjoyed the new thriller-esque plot, but it wasn’t exactly what I had planned to read.

Fun Factor

Don’t take my shift in tone as a detractor to my overall enjoyment. The Lies of Locke Lamora is a wild roller coaster that I had a blast on. The banter of the crew and the machinations of Locke’s schemes carry the story through and made me pick up the second one.

Overall – Private Stock

This book ends up on many “best of” lists for a reason. Incredibly well written story, with characters you can’t help but root for, its truly a work of art that I am very glad I picked up.

Pairs well with…

Pappy Van Winkle. Now I’m sure some people are saying “I was wondering when he’d mention pappy” but there is a special reason that I’ve saved it for The Lies of Locke Lamora.

In 2013, over two hundred bottles of Pappy were stolen from the Buffalo Trace Distillery, of which only a fraction were recovered. Given the nature of the crime, and the fact that Locke and his gang used a similar alcohol as bait for one of their schemes, it only seemed appropriate that such a rare bourbon would be paired with such a rare book.