Review: The Lies of Locke Lamora

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is hard to summarize what The Lies of Locke Lamora is about, but here is the best one sentence description I can give: “Ocean’s Eleven” meets Oliver Twist and Count of Monte Christo set in steampunk renaissance Venice.

Orphaned as a child due to the deadly Black Whisper plague, the titular protagonist of The Lies of Locke Lamora finds community in the Thiefmaker’s company of child thieves. From these humble beginnings is born the Thorn of Camorr—the greatest thief the island city of Camorr has ever known.

For decades, the Secret Peace has kept the nobility safe from the many underground thief gangs of Camorr. However, this doesn’t stop Locke’s Gentleman Bastards from planning a high-stakes caper on the noble Don Salvara. Despite Locke’s careful planning, the cat soon becomes the mouse as the mysterious Grey King begins to systematically hunt Camorr’s strongest gang leaders, plunging the city’s underbelly into tumult and paranoia.

Once you start Lies, you will be captivated by the characters. This story is character driven. The protagonists are instantly relatable, but also mysterious enough to keep you interested in learning more about them. The dialogue is witty, natural, and artful--some of the best of any fiction book I have read. Lynch does not rely on plot armor to keep the characters alive through the story. Locke and the Gentleman Bastards suffer heavy losses to deal with conflict throughout the book, keeping the stakes high.

Lies also has strengths in its artful prose and the interweaving of flashbacks and history into the main story through periodic interludes. Lynch carefully planned the interludes to add depth to the world, give backstory to the characters, comment on the plot themes, and foreshadow events to come. The way the interludes carry so much literary weight while still being entertaining and succinct is impressive.

Where Lies suffers—and the only thing keeping me from giving it five stars--is its pacing. You can tell that the setting is richly imagined since Lynch describes every outfit, room, boat, and building in detail. While I appreciate that Camorr was so thought-out that I could clearly imagine every aspect of it, the descriptions really bogged down the action in the last hundred or so pages of the book. Further, the last fifty pages of the book seemed to advance at an almost unbelievable pace, with many characters trusting others far more quickly than you would expect considering all the preceding events. This was jarring since the rest of the plot moved much more methodically. The character-driven nature of the story requires many things to happen to believably motivate the characters to act in a way necessary to progress the plot. This was prevalent for most of the book, but dropped out somewhat at the end.

Despite my criticism of pacing, it is easy to recommend this book. It is exciting, funny, and intriguing, and Camorr is absolutely dazzling. The story played in my head like a movie. Both newcomers to the genre and longtime fantasy fans will find countless things to love about The Lies of Locke Lamora.

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