The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch came out over ten years ago, and ever since the massively popular Gentleman Bastard series ground to a standstill, there have been any number of debut heist books that generate tons of excitement as something to fill the gap. This comparison is almost always deeply unfair to debuts like The Silverblood Promise, by James Logan, which have their own ideas and stories to tell. So please do your best to separate the two as I review this fun zesty story about a rake named Lukan in a beautiful, alluring, and dangerous city.
Lukan Gardova is a cardsharp, academy dropout, and―thanks to a duel that ended badly―the disgraced heir to an ancient noble house. His days consist of cheap wine, rigged card games, and wondering how he might win back the life he threw away. But, when his nanny/family assassin shows up at his door to inform Lukan that his estranged father was murdered, Lukan finds himself drawn back into the messy family business. Lukan finds clues on his father’s deathbed that lead him to Saphrona, a fabled city of merchant princes, where anything can be bought if one has the coin. Lukan only seeks the truth. Instead, he finds danger and secrets in every shadow.
I was going to slow roll this, but I simply cannot hold this in any longer: dear fucking god, Lukan is so unendingly stupid that I cannot believe that he hasn’t choked on air. There are a number of positive things about this book, we will get there, it’s very readable and fun, but all of it is constantly almost done in by Lukan’s unerring ability to do the dumbest possible thing in any situation. This contactless man shows up in a city with a famed complex web of intrigue, elite spycraft, shifting alliances, and constant deception. Lukan a) literally believes anything anyone tells him ever, with no hesitation even when the speaker is visibly shady, while constantly commenting on how you can’t trust anyone in this city. Lukan b) stumbles into several dubious locations of ill repute and shouts the dumbest things imaginable like, “anyone got any secrets?” and somehow is still breathing and making headway on his quest. Lukan c) routinely fucks up the most basic of instructions like “go here and wait for the contact; they will be the one who approaches you and says Lilac.” When approached in the correct location, at the correct time, and with the correct passkey, Lukan genuinely cannot figure out what is happening and why someone is approaching them. And yet, despite my constant prayer that Lukan falls into a ditch and dies off-screen, The Silverblood Promise somehow manages to be pretty entertaining through the use of strong worldbuilding, a surprisingly good support cast, and a mystery that got me invested despite Lukan’s Herculean efforts to the contrary.
The plot of Silverblood feels structured like a complicated fetch quest in a video game. Lukan wants something indicated by his father from an old friend, but the friend will only give it up if Lukan goes and does task B for them. Task B can only be completed by the completion of task C, and so on and so forth. The result is a straightforward but overwhelming to-do list of tasks that were all surprisingly fun. Each one takes us to new parts of Saphrona and introduces us to new memorable side characters. Each task also imparts an interesting lesson that Lukan learns nothing from and staunchly refuses to grow from in any measurable way. The prose is snappy and funny, and the cons/heists will scratch that thief itch many people look for when reading a book like this. Lukan finds himself with a child companion named Flea about a third of the way through the book, and I was gobsmacked to discover that despite usually despising this trope, I was pretty attached to the child. It could be that Flea had roughly 70 times the cerebral processing power as our protagonist which made her stand out like a star in the night sky – but she was also funny and interesting in her own right as well.
Additionally, Logan’s world feels very much epic in scope. Throughout book one, we don’t fully get to explore Saphrona, and I could absolutely spend a second book in this location. Despite this, the “crew” is already moving on to new and exciting locations I want to see elsewhere in the world. Logan did a great job baking in a very clearly realized world that feels like it has secrets hiding in corners that I wanted to find. Hopefully, Lukan will go through a crash course in making a single smart choice between books one and two.
The Silverblood Promise, despite my ragging on Lukan, is a fun and entertaining mystery that kept me satisfied as it unraveled. If Lukan was 90% more likable and the plot was a little less like a stack of bricks on top of one another I would have given this even higher marks.
Rating: The Silverblood Promise – 7.0/10
-Andrew
An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.
