[SAM] The Lies of Locke Lamora

[cirquedesgeeks]

Hooray! I’m the first to put up a review! Consider this a massive honour, pleasure all mine, etc. etc. Without further ado, on with the review!

The Lies of Locke Lamora is a fantasy novel set in the seedy rough-and-ready city-state of Camorr, where for the poor life is cheap and the rich live in obscene luxury. This state of affairs is maintained by the Secret Peace, an accord between the head of the criminal underworld and the city’s authorities – the thieves won’t rob the rich, and the city guards won’t wipe the thieves off the face of the planet.  Everybody wins!  Enter Locke Lamora and his gang of Gentleman Bastards, Camorr’s first con-men, and they’re set the shatter the Secret Peace and take the city’s rich folk for all they can get.  As you might imagine, though, things don’t exactly go to plan…

Lies is the debut novel by American author Scott Lynch, but the sheer ease with which the narrative flows and the world is painted gives you the impression Lynch has been writing these books for years.  There’s a superb balance between the humour and … well … anything that’s not the humour.  As fellow reviewer Susan put it, this is a book that can make you laugh out loud in delight the very next page after a rather uncomfortably graphic torture scene.  In that respect, Lynch doesn’t pull his punches – the fights are brutal, the violence gritty.  I often found myself wincing at the gruelling ordeals certain of the characters were put through.

The story’s real strength is in its characters.  There’s a very genuine feeling of camaraderie and loyalty between the Bastards and you soon find yourself caring very much about them and their crazy hustle.  Lynch very quickly lets you know that just because you’re growing attached to the characters doesn’t mean he’s going to be kind to them – nearly no one’s safe, everyone’s expendable.  Just because the story’s liberally peppered with jokes and humorous circumstances doesn’t mean this is a fairy tale or family-friendly romp through bright and breezy meadows; the mean streets of Camorr are a dangerous playground and the inhabitants play rough, very rough indeed.

Camorr itself is also an impressive piece of work, evoking lush visions of Renaissance Venice.  This could be due to the descriptions of the clothing, all the canals and the use of Italian-derived words such as ‘capa’ and ‘pezon’.  It’s probably just that I’ve been playing rather a lot of Assassin’s Creed 2 lately and it’s gotten to my head a bit.  Either way, the setting is just familiar enough that there’s a grounding for it and nice and foreign in every other respect, especially the descriptions of such unique features as the Elderglass buildings and the Duke’s fantastically opulent tower.  I don’t know how long Lynch took to create the place, but the result is an effortlessly real location that, if you’ll forgive the cliché, leaps right off the page.

In terms of narrative structure, the book’s put together quite interestingly.  The chapters alternate between the troubled times in the present and Locke’s youth under the tutelage of Father Chains, the man who taught him and the other Bastards the grifters’ way.  This lets you get to know the characters’ past without getting in the way of the present’s events. It can be quite jarring to have a load of past events dumped in your lap willy-nilly, or to start a book with the characters as children and then suddenly jump to their adulthood with barely any explanation.  This dual-narrative method works so much more naturally than the ’20 Years Later’ approach

Put simply, Lies is one of the best books I’ve read in a few years.  Its pacing is excellent, the setting feels very real and the characters are so well fleshed out you really do want them to succeed, be foiled or die very gruesomely indeed.  Though the unrelenting violence means it’s not for the faint of heart, it’s balanced out brilliantly by the lighter moments and the sheer scale of the hustle the Bastards are trying to pull off.  The only real criticism I can think of is that it is at times a tad predictable, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing as it’s kept fairly in check.

And that’s my review of The Lies of Locke Lamora!  Agree? Disagree? Have your say in the comments below – all views welcome!