The Lies of Locke Lamora

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

I picked up Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora with high hopes because I've really got a thing for stories about confidence men. I don't know why. I guess that's something to philosophize about another time...

I did like Locke Lamora. Lynch has created a unique and fascinating world full of wonderful creations such as a crime boss who rules his empire from a houseboat, his little daughter who sits on his lap drinking ale and kicking subordinates with her steel-toed boots, a blind priest who begs for alms and eats gourmet meals off fine plates in his luxurious cellar, noblemen who live in glowing glass towers, a blood-sucking rose garden, alcoholic oranges, and women who fight jumping man-eating sharks for sport. This is truly entertaining stuff!

The pace of the novel was quick and the plot was simple, but interesting. Flashback interludes often broke up the action, which was occasionally irritating. At first I wondered if the editor had dropped the manuscript and not got it put back together in order, but I soon realized that these flashbacks serve to give us information about the world without major info-dumps, and backstory on the characters without having to watch them grow up. The pace escalated during the last 100 pages or so, and I couldn't put it down.

Scott Lynch generally writes very well, but I do have three minor complaints in that regard. First is that the first half of the book is slightly over-written. The dialogue is too witty and clever. The smartest and best-educated people you know would have felt dull-witted while conversing with Locke and his gang of thieves. The narrator, also, tries a bit too hard to impress, and this makes for some slightly awkward prose. But the writing was toned down in the latter half of the book as the action picked up and things got more serious. I expect, now that Mr Lynch has proved himself, his writing style will become more natural, and better for it.

Second is the profanity. While I don't mind reading profanity in a fantasy novel (especially one whose main characters are the dregs of society), if it is overused, it loses its potency. I once remarked to one of my grad school professors that he needed to coin some new curse words because he cursed so much that it was impossible for his students to know when he was really mad. Likewise, Locke and his friends curse so often for no apparent reason that, by the end of the novel, when those words would have been most meaningful and appropriate, they lose all effect and the climactic scenes lose a bit of poignancy. I don't doubt that Locke and his friends would curse as much as Mr Lynch portrays but, since we can't actually hear inflections and tones of voice, Mr Lynch would do better technique-wise to make those words count by using them to give us clues about a character's state-of-mind.

Third, there are 499 pages in my hardback edition, and I think the word “alchemical” was used 499 times in this story. If you've got some friends who want to read The Lies of Locke Lamora with you, I suggest getting together with a bottle of your favorite liquor, appointing a designated reader (and driver), and every time he or she reads the word “alchemical”....

But these are minor complaints – enough to keep this from being a 5-star book, but not enough to keep me from greatly enjoying it. I'm looking forward to the next installment. If there's anything I like nearly as much as stories about confidence men, it's stories about pirates, so the two combined should be just my thing. And I really look forward to exploring more of Scott Lynch's world.
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