The Lies Of Locke Lamora

By Scott Lynch

It would be easy to hate Scott Lynch. By all accounts he began by posting parts of this, his first novel, on his blog and got noticed by Simon Spanton at Gollanz who promptly signed him up for a multibook deal, then sold the rights across Europe and the US. Now that’s nice work if you can get it, but to cap it off Warner Bros. have bought the film rights to the seven-book series and are hoping to use it to replace the Harry Potter franchise when it winds down in a couple of years. All this is galling enough but Mr. Lynch is not yet 30!

But to grumble about his great good fortune would be to do him a disservice indeed because The Lies Of Locke Lamora is a supremely self-assured debut from a writer of undeniable talent and imagination.

Subtitled ‘Book One of the Gentleman Bastard Sequence’, which gives you some indication of what to expect, the book opens with the titular character as a small child and the story of his induction into what will become a life of crime. With the after-effects of a plague leaving him orphaned and homeless, Locke joins a band of children that work for the Thiefmaker, picking pockets and stealing trinkets for him while he pays the city guard to turn a blind eye – the secret peace as it is known.

Unfortunately, Locke Lamora has no concept of where the boundaries lie, and after one high profile incident too many the Thiefmaker sells Locke to Chains, a man who poses as a blind priest, begging for a living outside a temple. Chains is not the poor beggar he seems, however, he is a con man, educating his select band to move in all walks of society, in their dress, their languages and their general behaviour, and this is where Locke’s real education as a Gentleman Bastard begins.

The book then switches to Locke as a young man, now the leader of this band of fellow bastards, as they begin to execute an elaborate long con on a rich merchant, for no other reason than they want to relieve him of a large chunk of his fortune. As the con unfolds we learn about the city of Camorr where the story takes place. At one end we are shown the hierarchy of the Camorr criminal fraternity, led by the ruthless Capa Basavi – and we find out Locke and his gang’s place within it – and at the other end we are shown the rich men and nobles who control the city and of the secret peace that exists between the two classes. Eventually we come to learn of the mysterious Grey King, who has begun to kill-off high profile members of Barsavi’s inner circle and how, eventually, Locke ends up enmeshed in schemes at both ends with seemingly no way out.

Now I’m late to the table with this review so to keep things simple I’m going to say, if you haven’t done it already, go and buy this book…right now…go. Stop reading this, leave the building and run like a nut-job to your nearest bookshop and beg them to sell you a copy. Frankly it’s by far and away the best fantasy novel we’ve read in a year and maybe even in three or four years. The plot is dense and complex with more characters per chapter than most books have over their entire course but it’s written with such verve and such panache that you will hang on every syllable.

The characters – and there are many – are so lovingly crafted that you feel you know them instantly. The world of Camorr with it’s alien glass towers left behind by a race that no-one remembers, it’s network of shark-infested canals, it’s inhabitants, be they Camorr, Verrari, Karthani or Lashani and the all-encompassing belief system of gods and temples is beautifully realised in three full, vivid and glorious dimensions and the whole is written with an attention to detail after rapturous detail that makes you ache to be there.

Switching back and forth from the main story to a series of ‘interludes’ that give us the childhood and back story for each of the characters, foreshadowing many of the turns in the book and helping to cement the relationships at the same time, is an ingenious way to show us the whole character without a great deal of exposition and we build a rapport with Locke as we read and find ourselves rooting for him despite ourselves.

Now it may be that I’m very open to the idea of a gentleman thief. It’s been done before with Hornung’s Raffles and Westlake’s Parker, so it’s a big ask to get the audience to like him, not least because, despite the camaraderie and derring-do, these folks are, in the end, stealing from people who don’t deserve to be stolen from, but Scott Lynch does it, and does it well. There is a great line of dialogue spoken by Chains to Locke;

“Some day, you’re going to fuck up so magnificently, so ambitiously, so overwhelmingly that the sky will light and the moons will spin and the gods themselves will shit comets with glee. And I just hope I’m still around to see it.“

“Oh, please.” said Locke. “It’ll never happen.“

And that, for me, sums up the whole story.

It’s not without faults but to mention them would be petty indeed, rather lets concentrate on what it does well. It’s a rip-roaring, romp of a tale, beautifully written with a fluid and absorbing style. The next book in the series Red Seas under Red Skies is out already and has leapt to the top of my must-read list and there is a prequel, The Bastards and the Knives, also available with Book 3, The Republic Of Thieves on it’s way.

The Lies of Locke Lamora is published by Gollancz S.F. and is available from Amazon, Blackwell and all good bookstores.

Scott Lynch has a website. You’ll find it here. He also used to maintain a blog which, while long out of date, you’ll find here.