The Republic of Thieves

‘The Republic of Thieves’ is essentially two books for the price of one.

The first follows on directly from the events of ‘Red Seas Under Red Skies’. Locke and Jean are on the run, attempting to avoid the fallout from their last scheme that went slightly awry. Becoming powerbrokers in the political arena seems a sensible idea, at least at first. The arrival of an old friend however adds an unexpected wrinkle to their latest "fool proof" plot.

The second narrative strand goes back in time and follows the teenage Gentleman Bastards as they take to the stage. Their ever-enigmatic mentor, Father Chains, demands they leave Camorr for the summer and assist an old acquaintance with his troupe of slightly deranged actors.

For a while now show more Mr. Lynch has lead us a delightfully merry dance. The character of Sabetha Belacoros has been mentioned in passing multiple times, but has never really been fully explored. Sabetha has been the lingering shadow that has hung over Locke's past. She's the one that got away, as it were. Finally meeting her has been a long time coming, and her introduction is handled wonderfully.

I've been trying to think of the best way to adequately describe the connection that exists between Sabetha and Locke. The closest thing I can equate it to is the relationship that Sherlock Holmes has with Irene Adler. The verbal sparring, where they continually try to outdo one another is a joy. Locke has more than met his match and, much as he would try and deny it, in his heart I think he knows it. Their interactions fill in many of those lovely little deliberate blanks that appear in previous novels. Knowing Sabetha helps the reader to better understand both Locke and also Jean.

There have also been fleeting glimpses of the Bondsmagi in the past but their murky motives have never really been revealed. In this book we finally get to learn some of the inner workings of this most secret society. Turns out that magical practitioners are a tricky bunch, and the Gentleman Bastards feature heavily in their plans. Poor old Locke and Jean, they can't catch a break.

It appears that those carrot-dangling days of teasing us aren't over quite yet. It's true that some of secrets we've longed to discover finally see something close to daylight, sort of, but there are still many more mysteries that are not yet resolved. Locke's mysterious origins and his ultimate fate are danced around but it appears that Lynch isn’t done messing with our heads.

In ‘The Republic of Thieves’, it feels like Locke, Jean and company have finally come of age. We get to see them as awkward teens and then as the more confident adult versions of themselves. Lynch's writing excels when it comes to character evolution. It's so fluid and natural you're never going to question it. show less

I'm probably in the minority here, but: Locke and Sabetha's relationship bores me to tears. Melodramatic pining! Romantic, aloof redhead! I'm Doing This For Your Own Good! Ugh. I'm in this for Jean. Fortunately, Jean is still the greatest.

I loved the nonromantic A plot, as always - who doesn't like watching con artists play politics? And Patience was an utterly fascinating character to get to know. The explanations of the Bondsmagi were extremely satisfying...now I want to go reread the earlier books with this in mind. And the B plot? Well, I'd have given anything for more Chains and Calo and Galdo, so that was pretty great too.

So, after surviving whatever it was they survived at the end of Red Seas, far too long ago to remember - except for the bit about the cat and the ship and the old sailor guy, that was hilarious - Locke is near death, Jean is near exhaustion and the Bondsmagi are back and this time they're looking for someone to rig an election! That's right! We've gone from Donald E Westlake in Fantasyland to Ross Thomas in MadeupPlace! Except for the flashback half of the book! Which is Some Theatrical Memoir I Haven't Read in ConjuredCountry!

I know people were down on Red Seas, but I enjoyed it. Lynch turns his heists and long cons into epics by sheer dint of throwing mischance, setback, betrayal, complication, catastrophe and impossible situations by show more the dozen at our lovable rogues. I thought it showed flair to interrupt a complex robbery by despatching the robbers on ship to the far side of the world for a whole series of piratical adventures which they have to survive, extract themselves from and then somehow make their way back to the scene of the soon-to-be-crime where more disasters and unwinnable stand-offs await their tired selves. Hm. Remembering more of it than I thought.

Anywhoo, no setback quite so epic happens to either of the storylines here, but that doesn't mean that massive logs don't get dropped every ten yards on the tracks ahead the Good Train Gentlemen Bastards. In the past, Master Chains sends his troublesome charges for a bit of seasoning to a far-off city to help run a theatre troupe for a season. When they get there, the troupe has fallen apart, and the director is in prison for a year. Things generally go downhill from there. In the present, Jean and Locke are inveigled to rig an election in the home city of the Bondsmagi. Nobody really cares who wins, it's just a sort of hands-off competition to entertain the magicians. Much to the shock of absolutely no-one except our doughty heroes, the opposing side have brought in the love of Locke's life, ex-Gentleman Bastard Sabetha, who has a had start on them and uses it with admirable ruthlessness.

So the past story we know everyone survives, but they're also thoroughly engaged in what they're doing and the GBs must pull of unlikely miracles to keep the show on the road. In the present story, no-one really cares about the politics, but they have to put on a good show, with plenty of tricks and schemes and corruption and bluffs and double-bluffs and, not incidentally, a crucial revelation about Locke and more vague hints about threats that will, no doubt, feature in volumes to come.

Thus Lynch makes a big book out of two smaller, tighter, leaner narratives than in either Books One or Two. Clever. I enjoyed it. What more do you want? show less

I'm reading, in some of the other reviews that the plot for this one went nowhere, that it was boring, that Sabetha is hated.

I respectfully disagree with all of this.

In defense of the plot going nowhere, this one was really never about the election, but more about the relationship between Locke and Sabetha. Through the past and present stories, you got the full range of the relationship, from start to end, in both the past and present.

And, at least for me, it was never boring, because I've been that heartsick boy who just only ever wanted to be able to say the right thing to the girl, but each time I did, it came out wrong. So, the flashback scenes where they danced around each other was painful and awkward to watch. And in the show more present-day plot, the tennis match of Locke versus Sabetha's dirty tricks against each other was fun.

And, or course, through it all, there were the usual inventive and desperate cons that you've come to expect and love from a Locke Lamora novel.

Finaly, what's all this hate for Sabetha? She's portrayed as a very guarded, extremely intelligent, quick-witted woman. She's challenging. She's like everything else in Locke's life...a challenge, a problem, a lock without the right key. She's the perfect foil and companion for Locke. I loved her.

Honestly, three books in, and I just keep finding more and more love for this series. I'm not a fantasy guy. Yes, I read the Lord of the Rings, and a few others, but, while I found much to enjoy, none of them ever grabbed me or entertained me like Lynch has.

I, quite simply, adore this series.

As a side note, I find it funny that I finished a book that tells the story of election rigging on Trump's one-year anniversary in office. There's a message in there somewhere... show less

"Let's steal an election."

At least, that's how Nate Ford would say it. After the events of Red Seas Under Red Skies, Locke Lamora is dying from a unique alchemaic poison. The only cure comes with a heavy price, a job for the fearsome Bondsmages of Karthain, managing the election for their pet city. And to make things interesting, running the other side is Sabetha, Gentleman Bastard and the love of Locke's life. Expect high stakes, secrets to be revealed, and things to catch fire.

As usual, the story is balanced between the heist and the past, with Locke growing of age and staging his first caper as a travelling theater company. The plotting is a little more languid than the other books, but the characterizations is deeper. Locke and show more Sabetha have a really toxic love: passion, respect, and hidden knives all mixed up into a poisonous brew, and it somehow rings true to me. Real love is messy, real love is downright toxic sometimes, and Lynch is exactly right about the kinds of trouble clever boys can get themselves into putting exceptional women on pedestals. He also has some useful and hard earned wisdom about treating women, as you know, people, and listening to them. I tend to view almost any description of Sabetha from Locke's perspective as unreliable as all hell, but it comes out as realistic and satisfying in the end.

The Republic of Thieves is a fine step up from Red Seas Under Red Skies and has me waiting for the next installment. show less

Unfortunately, the Gentleman Bastard Sequence has been a sequence of ever-diminishing returns. The first was excellent, a gutsy and ripping fantasy thriller. The second was more cumbersome, but still had some of the pace and personality of its predecessor. The third continues a decline in pace, freshness and inspiration that it saddens me to report.

This is not to say that The Republic of Thieves is a bad book, only that there is stark evidence of a decline in the series. The third is still well-written and weaves a number of plots together capably, but the payoff is not worth the anticipation. We are promised the tantalising introduction of Sabetha, a mysterious former member of Locke Lamora's crew and his one true love. But the show more character does not – perhaps could not – live up to this anticipation, and comes across – in both the main plot and in the flashbacks – as, variously, bored, superior and effortlessly capable. She is frustrating and contradictory and sometimes innocently teasing, and because there are indeed women like this who are also capable of holding men in thrall, it cannot help but make those readers who have known such women feel small and frustrated too. We read fantasy to escape that sort of thing.

And on those flashbacks, they take up half of the book. It is as if two plots are running throughout – the main one and one in the past with Sabetha in the teenage gang. This in itself wouldn't be a problem – though it can hinder narrative pace – if the flashback plotline was particularly good. But, aside from the strong early chapters, it is not. The plot about putting on a production of a play was rather tame, and sewn up all too neatly. Not only that, it ends with Sabetha still in the gang. We learn of her and Locke's youthful courtship, but if The Republic of Thieves is meant to be "Sabetha's book" in the Gentleman Bastard Sequence, it should also have told how they came to be separated too. Deferring this to a later book (yet to be written) even after 600+ pages makes unnecessary demands of readers' patience and goodwill, unless there proves to be a damn good reason – plot-wise – to do so.

As for the main plot – or, more accurately, the other 50% of the book – it too is underwhelming, though better than the flashbacks. The reunion with Sabetha – the tension, the awkwardness, the struggle to wrap bandages over old wounds even if we don't know what those wounds are – is more interesting than the mooning teenage courtship. But the central 'con' – rigging an election in Karthain – often takes a back seat, lacks any real stakes and is resolved rather erratically. It is always hard to believe in the stakes when magic is involved, a common trap for fantasy stories that author Scott Lynch regrettably falls into here. Powerful magic lends itself too easily to deus ex machina, and the sense that one's sorcerous benefactors are watching over you and could wipe the slate clean if they wanted to has the unfortunate consequence of making the earthier capers of the first (and second) books in this series seem like they possessed higher stakes, even though they were more low-key.

I don't mean to be unkind in this review, because I did enjoy it and never felt fatigued reading it, despite its heft. I just don't like the very much evident (downward) course the books are taking in terms of élan and inspiration. The Republic of Thieves felt at times like it was setting up future volumes in the series rather than telling a story of its own, and though I am usually very forgiving of such circumstances (as I was with George R. R. Martin's similar shuffle in A Feast for Crows), I am sceptical about where this is going. If the revelations about Locke's past in The Republic of Thieves are even remotely true, it compromises a lot of what we like about the character: the roguishness, the resourcefulness, the scrappiness. The flair and the dark joy. It is these qualities which have been spread thinner as the books have progressed, and I can only hope Lynch comes out all guns blazing – as he is capable of doing – when The Thorn of Emberlain is published next year. show less

This was the book I was waiting for. The "Sabetha" book. Even though she had no part in the previous two books, her character was built up as being crucially important to Locke, and I was dying to find out why.

The Republic of Thieves takes its name from a fictional play that young Locke, Jean, Calo, Galdi, and Sabetha perform as part of a task they're set to by Chains. Naturally, it's a near-impossible task, which is likely why Chains sent them. Part of the book is told in flashbacks to this time, to their early scams and deeds, and to Locke and Beth's early love.

The main part of the book takes place in the present, after the bondsmagi Patience cures Locke in exchange for him and Jean working for her on what the bondsmagi call their show more "five year game." Since they are barred from using their powers on each other the bonsdmagi take sides in a local election, often bringing in outsiders to help achieve victory. For Patience's side, those outsiders are Locke and Jean. For the other side, it's Sabetha. And one more thing: If the bondsmagi even think the three of them are conspiring together, they'll all be killed. I don't think it's a spoiler to say the bondsmagi can't be trusted. After all, Locke says that nearly every time he encounters one.

If you think I did not squeal out loud at the thought of Locke and Beth matching wits then you do not know me at all. Sneaking around, setting traps for each other, always trying to outdo one another--it's courtship to them and catnip to me. Beth and Jean's relationship isn't ignored, though; they're as happy to see each other as the family they are, and without all the awkwardness between Beth and Locke.

This book felt like a reunion. It had the Locke from before he was poisoned, the Jean who shed some of his sadness, and lots and lots of memories of the twins and Chains. It was fun to see everyone doing what they do for love of the challenge and the challenger.

I'll be looking forward to the next book in this series. You know, the one that was set up ever so nicely at the very end of this one.

(Provided by publisher) show less