Murder in LaMut

What this book does very right:

It's almost a three musketeer's kind of tale without the humor, a close band of mercenaries working their way across Feist's world until they get trapped by circumstance and some nasty Baronial politics and a snowstorm. Much later on, it DOES become a murder mystery, but the title is misleading, masquerading as big plot point without ACTUALLY being the reason for the novel.

It is, however, a pretty damn delightful novel full of great details, very well developed characters, and a slow burn that reminds me of an enormously entertaining backstory for a series yet to come. I'd read a LOT more of these guys if I ever get the chance.

The murder mystery DOES make sense, however. Being a mercenary and keen on show more keeping one's skin really can be a job for someone bright and analytical, and I definitely saw a lot of that throughout the novel. You might say that this is the beginning of a great Mystery series that just happens to be set in a fantasy world.

The genre mix was really pleasing. It just might not have been packaged right. Or readers may have wanted something more LIKE the other Feist novels.


The bad, assuming you think it is bad:

This is almost nothing like the other Feist novels. There is no big magic, big battles, demon invasions, or recognizable characters... except in passing conversation. If I wanted nothing but Feist, I might be disappointed.


If I wanted good fantasy with a careful and slow progression of characterization and depth of story, then I really needed to look no further. :) show less

Murder in LaMut is the second book in the Legends of the Riftwar subseries, a trilogy of books co-written with different authors and set during Feist’s original Magician. The co-author of this book is Joel Rosenberg, whose books I’ve never tried.

I’m hoping this was the low point of the larger Riftwar Cycle series, because I found it pretty boring. There just isn’t much going on for most of the book, at least not that interested me. Had I been invested in the characters, I wouldn’t have minded if the story was light on action or events, but I didn’t care for the characters either. I didn’t dislike them, but there wasn’t anything about them that grabbed me.

The title of the book implied to me that this would be a murder show more mystery, or something similar. I therefore expected the murder to happen or to be discovered near the beginning of the book and I expected the rest of the book to involve piecing together clues and/or dealing with the aftermath. That’s not how this book flowed at all. I often enjoy having my expectations thrown off and being surprised, but that didn’t do anything for me this time. We start off learning about a character who seems to have had a set of unlucky accidents, and some people think they might be more than just a coincidence. They assign three mercenaries to guard him, and those are the characters we follow for most of the book. There isn’t actually a “Murder in LaMut” until (putting the % in a spoiler tag for people who don’t want to know) 74% into the book! Since the title proclaims there’s a “Murder in LaMut”, it wasn’t a surprise and felt very anti-climatic when it finally happened.

I’m not even a huge fan of murder mysteries, but I was so happy that something finally happened and it was finally time for our characters to solve the mystery that I found the rest of the story more interesting. However, I was pretty annoyed at the end. An innocent man was killed for the murder because the people investigating didn’t bother to be sure of their facts and missed the extremely obvious fact that the victims were drugged. Admittedly, the completely wrong people were put in charge of the murder investigation, so it’s not surprising they bungled it.

From the author’s notes at the end it sounded like the three mercenary characters who featured in the story were based on characters from Rosenberg’s own work. Someone familiar with his work and those characters might appreciate this more than I did.

It wasn’t a horrible book, but my attention wandered a lot and the ending was a disappointment. One thing I did enjoy was how the author(s) phrased some things. I chuckled several times when a turn of phrase struck me funny. I’m giving this 2.5 stars based on my low interest in the story, but rounding up to 3 on Goodreads for the humor. show less

Not as bad as I remembered, it's probably because I was wanting full on fantasy back then, it's its definitely not that. It just happens to be set in Midkemia, although the only familiar character is Fantus the fire drake! It's an okay political/murder tale, it meanders a bit, could be sharper and tenser, as it has a good base story.

After decades of war, mercenaries Durine, Kethol, and Pirojil take a quiet assignment escorting a nobleman to LaMut. When a winter storm traps them in a castle, they must solve a series of cold-blooded murders that threaten Midkemia's political future.

Durine, Kethol and Pirojil are a mercenary trio, who are holed up in Lamut for the winter. They’ve been assigned to what they think is a cushy job, protecting a local Baron. Unfortunately, things are never that simple, and they fail to realise just how murky Lamutian politics can get…

This book is a very enjoyable read. Part of that is down to the familiar setting of Feist’s Kingdom of Isles, part of it is the writing style, which is easy to read and relaxing. The plot takes a while to get going and it’s the last quarter of the book where things start to get really interesting, but all along it’s an enjoyable read. With many of Feist’s recent books, I have disliked the small scale of the storyline, compared to the epic scope show more of much of his work, but here I think it worked fairly well. The three main characters are interesting enough, and different from Feist’s other characters – this is probably due to them being characters ‘transplanted’ from some of Joel Rosenberg’s books. I didn’t have a problem with that, and may even read some of Rosenberg’s solo works sometime. Well worth reading, especially if you’re a fantasy fan, and certainly if you’re a Feist fan in particular.
Note – there are similarities to Agatha Christie in the latter part of the book, or is it just me? show less

Another book in the Legends of the Rift War, the shared worlds stories shared between Feist and other authors. In this case, the guest author is Joel Rosenberg and in this particular case most of the story is Joel's, from the three leading characters to the situation. It's basically set in the city of LaMut. Although it's set in Midkemia, the story itself is basically a 'closed room' mystery. OK the room is a city, but it's a city cut off by feet deep snowdrifts Durine, Kethol and Pirojil are mercenaries - not all that uncommon in a war that had been dragging on for years now, but they weren't members of a company, but a small team of just the three of them. But, as mercenaries, the trio were getting jittery about the way the war was show more going and were planning to get out. The Earl's Captain was OK with their leaving = three men would barely be missed. But, if they would be so kind, could they undertake one last task; escort the Lady Monegreen back home to her dying husband, oh and act as bodyguards to Barron Morray, the Barron Mondegreen's opponent in the upcoming... debate in the forthcoming Council that would provide the next Earl of LaMut..At first the job has its perks and only a few downsides but the trio find themselves holding embarrassing information about their betters. And they were only lowly mercenaries so they decide to run before that storm stops all movement. And then the threats against Morray turn out to have a depressing basis in fact as the baron is eviscerated in his bed...
With their principle dead, the trio are forced to turn investigators in a city becoming ever more on edge as the various mercenary groups realise that, not only are they stuck in the city, the only person who knows how to open the payroll safe has just been killed.
As a standalone novel, this is good and the fact that its set on Midkemia pretty much irrelevant show less

Maybe not my favorite of these three co-written books but still so much fun. Feist ist so good at creating characters you like!