3.5 stars
Who's your favourite smart cracking ex-assassin? Vlad Taltos, of course. This is the volume where he has to deal, at least a little bit, with his past. Although he used to kill people for a living, Vlad makes friends rather easily. And he doesn't much care if they're Easterners or one of the many sorts of Dragnerians. Which explains why he's back in Adrilankha. His ex-wife, Cawti, is in trouble and Vlad is determined to iron things out for her, whether she wants help or not.
So, he gets the tour of his old stomping grounds: the house his grandfather used to live in, his old office, his favourite restaurant. In fact, Brust uses the opulent meal at this restaurant as a structure for the book, with each chapter headed by a description of a meal course. And his discussions with a Dzur lord who has joined him, hence the title of this volume.
After his time spent wandering the wilderness, it's nice to have him back in the old neighbourhood and speaking civilly to Cawti. But just like a long elaborate meal, there was a lot of pausing and resting along the way. The pace is leisurely and like Loiosh, I got impatient from time to time. While the final confrontation worked, plot-wise, it was a bit of an anticlimax. Perhaps the very final reveal made it worthwhile?
Book Number 460 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project
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