I don't feel like the Vlad Taltos books get quite the praise they deserve, both for story and craft. His fully-realized secondary world stands even or above many others, and his characters (and the narratives they're in) are strikingly different from so much other mainstream fantasy or science fantasy (I think it fair to say there's some sci-fi in the mix).
Over on Goodreads, I gave this a 4/5, and I stand by that. It might be a little over or a little under, but it sets itself apart from the two previous volumes and doesn't coast. We get revolution, assassinations, marital strife, and a deep, unpleasant examination of self.
*Brust wrote his Vlad Taltos books in the order the stories came to him, but not in their chronological, in-universe order. I always read a series in the order it was written. I don't care if book 1 is the NOW, book 2 five years ago and book 3 both in between and three weeks in the future. To me, an author's brain or subconscious birthed the stories and universe of a series in a particular order. The publication order might look off ten years down the line, but the better experience (unless you have a case where publishers interfered) is to read as the author wrote.
-E
