The Lies of Locke Lamora By Scott Lynch

The Lies of Locke Lamora

By Scott Lynch

Mr. Lynch was born in 1978 in St Paul, Minnesota, the eldest of three brothers. He worked a wide range of careers; as a dishwasher, waiter, graphic designer, cook, office manager, game supplement self-publisher, and in his own words accidentally sold his first novel in 2004. We'll get back to that novel. In between the selling of that novel and its publication in 2006, he trained at Anoka Technical College to become a firefighter, moving to East Wisconsin afterward and serving 11 years as a paid-on-call member of the fire department. In 2016, he moved to Massachusetts with his second wife Elizabeth Bear (yes, that Elizabeth Bear), they live with three cats and keep a horse named Ormr. Our review today is Mr. Lynch's first novel, which was published by Del Rey books, an imprint of Ballantine Books, which in turn is owned by Random House (yep, they're back [Ah horizontal integration. Don’t we have anti-trust laws? Yes we do, but they’re not enforced nearly as well as they should be, with government approval of mergers being a rubber stamp on account of the regulators being - you guessed it - bought and paid for at the executive level]). The book was well-received, being nominated for the World Fantasy Award in 2007 and for the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2007 and 2008. Mr. Lynch did receive the Best Newcomer Award from the British Fantasy Society in 2008.

Locke Lamora is a con artist and a thief; a priest to a secret god and leader of the Gentlemen Bastards - a group of thieves preying on the aristocrats and super wealthy of their city-state of Camorr (And thus there are no victims in his “crimes” {Normally I’d disagree but none of the nobles seem to suffer any real hardship other than the embarrassment of being conned which they deal with by hiding the fact they were conned}.). Camorr is basically an outsized version of Venice, a trading city ruled by a Duke where people travel by canals and waterways instead of roads and footpaths (My god. The Smell.{It gets worse, no sanitation system}). The Gentlemen Bastards are themselves something of a secret society within a secret society. To greater society - when not adopting a variety of false identities and disguises to charm money from their marks - they pretend to be priests of the god Perelando, the god of the downtrodden and overlooked (Well they are overlooked…). However, within the world of crime, they pretend to be a small band of housebreakers and sneak thieves, hiding their success from even their fellow criminals. This is a wise idea as Camorr's criminal society has been ruthlessly organized under a single man. Capa Barsavi rules Camorr as the sole crime boss of the city and he does so from a mountain of corpses, with the tacit support of the covert elements of the government (Oh there’s some social commentary to be had here…). He gains this support from the secret peace, an agreement that while merchants and common folk are fair game, the aristocrats, guards and city officials are not to be troubled by thieves or other criminals. Now those caught doing crimes are still punished and executed, but if you get away with your crime, the guards won't investigate too hard. So this suits everyone, except the Merchants and the Common folks, who have no idea how hard they're getting screwed (If they did, there would rightfully be guillotines. There is no war but class war, mein Dammen und Herren.). So if word got out that Locke targeted those excluded by the secret peace, both the government and organized crime would combine forces to murder him in a slow graphic fashion. This only makes Locke and his fellow Gentlemen Bastards feel even cleverer every time they get away with his schemes. Which is good because while they got the conning and stealing part down cold... They have never figured out what to do with the massive wealth they've assembled. So they leave it sitting in secret vaults under the temple of the god of the poor (Now, what they should be doing, is making sure they can eat… and then either distributing the money to the poor, or laundering the money through a perfectly legitimate business. I’d prefer the former, obviously. They could even create a parastate apparatus like the gangs in Brazillian favelas or… well, Baltimore, and gain the protection of the common people.{Yes, they could do that but they're not clever enough or ambitious enough to consider it.  Plus they're terrified of their crime boss finding out what they're doing}). Which honestly has me face-palming, but it is the first sign of a running theme in this book, that the Gentlemen Bastards are not as clever as they think they are and are way more vulnerable to assault and loss than they think. Let's take a look at each of the characters, shall we?

Locke Lamora is our main character and glorious leader of the Gentlemen Bastards, a consummate actor, he is clever, quick-witted and not only a skilled liar but knows when to lie and when to tell the truth. Locke was an orphan before he was brought into the thieving lifestyle, which frankly was his best option as his other option would have involved being sold into slavery (All joking about using orphans to power magical rituals aside, you can tell a lot about a society from the way it treats its orphans. This city needs to be burned to the waterline.{Camorr is not a good place and the novel does not pretend otherwise}). Since then Locke has been pushing the boundaries of what he can get away with and reaching for bigger and bigger scores just to prove that he can. He couldn't do this alone, however. Jean Tannen is his right-hand man, born the child of a merchant family, Jean was orphaned in a fire that destroyed his home, everything his family-owned, and, well, orphaned him. Jean was lucky in that he found a new family in the Gentlemen Bastards (Awwww. Chosen family is important!). While educated and rather talented in his own right, his main role is as the fighter in the group wielding a pair of hatchets named the Wicked Sisters (I suspect he had some rage issues growing up? {Nearly being burned alive and then abandoned by everyone but a pack of thieves might do that.}). In fact, Locke’s - he’s not much of a fighter - main tactic is to simply tie the enemy down until Jean gets to the scene, at which point the dying tend to start in earnest (For some reason I imagine a friend of ours showing up with a pair of hatchets and...that scares me.). Jean is also Locke's best friend and is one of the few people that can cut Locke down to size when his ego gets ahead of him. Operating alongside both of them are Calo and Galdo Sanza: identical twins, jacks of all trades, and biggest card sharks in the city. Able to perform almost any task competently they serve as the workhorses of the gang and the bedrock of the team. Rounding out the team is the apprentice Bug. Much younger than the other four, Bug comes from the worst neighborhood in Camorr. He is loyal, wild, and as fearless as only a 12-year-old boy who has faced death several times and walked away a winner can be. If he were educated and polished, he could grow into something even more dangerous than Locke honestly.

While they are amazingly skilled and have deep resources, the Gentlemen Bastards are in trouble. Because while they're chasing the biggest con and score they've ever pulled off, they're about to walk into a crossfire. Camorr isn't safe for honest criminals anymore as a strange figure known as the Grey King haunts the streets, murdering gang leaders and calling out for Capa Barsavi (Oh. Oh no.). Since Locke works for Capa Barsavi and people know that the Capa is fond of Locke... Well, that means Locke is a target for a man he knows nothing about, has no idea who he is, and who might know who Locke really is and what he's really been doing. If that wasn't bad enough the leader of Camorr's secret police, known only as the Spider (Why is it that spymasters always get called The Spider? Is it the web? There was one French monarch who was called The Universal Spider too but that was because of the web he wove with his progeny.{I wouldn’t mind a spymaster called the hawk because of his all seeing gaze or something instead}) has lost patience with this gang of upstarts who keep conning the money that the aristocrats meant to use to fuel lavish displays of power and wealth (Kill them. Except the Medici, they get positive credit for kickstarting the Renaissance. Thankfully they’re in Not! Florence rather than Not! Venice.) and means to do something about it. Both the Grey King and the Spider have advantages over Locke. For one thing, Locke doesn't know anything about them and they both have resources he can't do much about. So Locke is going to have to figure out who is after him and his family, what he can do about it, and how to keep his con going because if he gives up his score then everyone wins and he won't have that. Watching him do that is like watching a master juggler juggle greased knives or perhaps chainsaws soaked in gasoline. Which raises the question of how much can Locke lose before he finally gives up his pride? If you're wondering? Don't worry the story is going to punch Locke in the face until we get an answer and it honestly disturbs me how much I enjoy watching protagonists getting punched in the face at this point.

Mr. Lynch is telling us a story of a talented group of young men who are rapidly finding themselves out of their depth in shark-infested waters and he does it rather well. The backstory of the Gentlemen Bastards and Camorr is shown to us rather than told to us. Rather than make us wade through over a 100 pages of origin story before getting to the good part though, Mr. Lynch instead intertwines it into the story, this is done by having one chapter tell us a part of the backstory and the next chapter telling us the story itself and so on. This makes for clean breaks and keeps the reader from getting too confused I think, Mr. Lynch also makes an effort to have the flashback chapters be at least somewhat related to the current events chapters which does help a lot. Although it does pad the novel quite a bit. The Lies of Locke Lamora clocks in at over 700 pages, so this is not a quick read. Despite a page count that could have led to an overstuffed novel, this actually works pretty well due to Mr. Lynch being able to keep a constant pace and forward momentum to the story. It also works by having Mr. Lynch address several themes in the story without getting on a soapbox. Not to give too much away but this is a story about revenge and how the quest for vengeance tends to cause others to come after you in turn. After all, if someone murders your family in their beds, most are honestly not going to care about that person’s list of grievances. If your family is dead, your life destroyed, and the person who did it tells you that it was necessary for his revenge, most of us start thinking about getting revenge for ourselves. Additionally, Mr. Lynch manages to dodge completely the main problem that characters like Locke can have. Of being so clever that they become untouchable and just kind of cruise to victory. It's important to show that a character like Locke can lose and isn't untouchable to keep the suspense up in the story and to keep the character from becoming unbearable.

Now the book isn't perfect. I feel that Calo and Galdo were kinda pushed to the background in this story and that means their contribution isn't as powerful as it could be. Also, there's a bit left unfinished in the origin story as we see the beginning of it but not the middle and much of the book is spent talking about a character named Sabetha, a woman that Locke is besotted with to the point of refusing to consider any other relationship but who never appears in a single page. Which is the kind of blatant sequel hook I honestly dislike. If she's that damn important go ahead and give her a scene or three in the book itself rather than constantly prattling on about her is going to be my opinion. I think this kind of grew out of the fact that Mr. Lynch was trying to tell two stories at once and only had so much space to do it in. While he did tell both stories very well, he was a little trapped by the choice especially since he had to make both stories related to each other to keep the flow going. That said I deeply enjoyed the book and found myself drawn into the brutal but colorful world it presented me. The Lies of Lock Lamora by Scott Lynch gets an A. I'm really impressed that this is Mr. Lynch's first work.

So given the public health emergency, we're all living through, your editor and I have decided to post these reviews without redaction.  Although I will admit I think your editor is holding back.  If you would like a vote in what books we review in the coming months consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where a dollar a month gets you a vote in upcoming reviews.  Of course, given the times we're in please don't strain yourselves.  Next week we'll be covering the Fall of Gondolin by JRR Tolkien.  Until then, stay safe, don't hoard, wash your hands and always keep reading!  

red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

black text is your writer Garvin Anders