The Cephalopod Coffeehouse - The Lies of Locke Lamora

Welcome to another edition of the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, brought to you by The Armchair Squid. The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you've finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same. In this way, we'll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers.  Please join us:

This month I'm going to talk about a book I mentioned before as being in the unfinished category for much too long: The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch.

  The problem was not with the writing or the characters or the plot. The problem was that the author had drawn me in so well and made me care so much about the main character, Locke Lamora, and his Gentlemen Bastards (translated, fellow thieves), that I was afraid for him and them because I had reached a point where I knew something terrible was going to happen. Things had been going far too well for Locke (if one can say such a thing about an orphan who is saved from death by a thief pretending to be a priest), and I happen to know that there is often a direct correlation between how well things are going to how bad they're going to get.

So. I had to stop reading for a bit. But after writing about the fact that the book remained unfinished I decided to pick it up again. And there I was, back in Camorr (a place drawn exquisitely, I might add) with Locke, who's about to pull off a very sweet and massive heist. I so wanted Locke and his mates to get what they were after.

I'm not going to tell you whether they do or don't or anything else except that I really loved this book and Locke, who's such a clever little bastard and yet so likeable. No mean trick.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who likes fantasy or just a good heist story.