Springtime in Styria. And that means war. There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled the land white. While armies march, heads roll and cities burn, behind the scenes bankers, priests and older, darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king. War may be hell but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso's employ, it's a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular - a shade too popular for her employer's taste. Betrayed, thrown down a mountain and left for dead, Murcatto's reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die. Her allies include Styria's least reliable drunkard, Styria's most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a Northman who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And that's all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started...Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.
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Exploration of side characters from the Abercrombie "First Law" universe
Brutal in places (although I'm fine with that) (1 more)
Not for the fainthearted
Best Served Cold
If you couldn't tell from the title, this is all about the revenge motif. If you've read Abercrombie, the savagery of the opening chapter (and plenty of others) should not bother you by this point, but having said that there were moments in this even I winced at.
This standalone novel takes place in Abercrombie's universe established in the "First Law" trilogy, and much like other offerings (The Heroes, Red Country) it's charms for me lie in the characters that play only a fleeting part in the previous books. Seeing where they are from and how they operate is so satisfying to me as a reader.
The very next facet of this read that made it so excellent for me, is theme of moral bankruptcy. At the start, Murcatto is a leader, betrayed and left so horribly injured that it sets a moral precedent. She sets out to kill the seven men who carried this out (one of which is a despot who looks to name himself King of Styria), and as they fall, one by one, more and more of the moral right she has is chipped away and spent, having to turn her hand to more and more depraved acts, associate with lower and lower people, and be part of more and more hideous scenarios in order to exact her justice.
If you've had the pleasure of reading the First Law trilogy, this is the book to start with next, it then leads brilliantly into the Heroes, and most recently Red Country.
A good (mostly) standalone book following loosely from the events in the First Law trilogy. Some familiar faces appear, though some only briefly. A gang of mercenaries are recruited to disrupt relations and generally pee-off those who have wronged Murcatto.