The Black Bouquet

The second book in the rogue series, which i'm reading out of order, is a pleasant and relatively quick read. As with the series, the protagonist is a rogue, and he gets involved in something that puts him neck deep in trouble. It was kind of a mixed bag though.

The characters were interesting enough, although i can't help feeling they were a little underdeveloped and cliched. Aeron, the protagonist, was all right, trusting more in his brains than his brawn, but a not very deep character. Miri, a wilderness ranger, who is out of her element feels a little stuck up, and similarly felt could've been more. One of the villains, Sefris, was the best of the lot. A rather believeable take on a worshipper of a dark goddess. The other villain, a tanarruk, also felt wasted. His fiendish nature wasn't really taken advantage of and you could replace him with a normal human or orc and it would feel no difference.

The setting itself felt generic. The city of Oeble in the Border Kingdoms; not a region I'm familiar with but I'm not so sure about a Faerunian surface city with goblinkind being part of the open population. But then again, they're not particularly noteworthy. You could replace them with humans to little effect.

It was kind of odd that the titular black bouquet is neither a dangerous relic from the past nor a power powerful magic item capable of affecting tremendous change. It's kind of refreshing that it's not, but also kind of disappointing with its mundaneness. The plot itself was fine, with the somewhat predictable twists here and there, but appropriate enough given the theme of the series.

On the whole, a likeable story, and an appropriate ending, where our protagonist turns a not-quite-a-new-leaf.