Jhegaala

Vlad Taltos, Book 11

By: Steven Brust

Narrated by: Bernard Setaro Clark

Fresh from the collapse of his marriage, and with the criminal Jhereg organization out to eliminate him, Vlad decides to hide out among his relatives in faraway Fenario. All he knows about them is that their family name is Merss and that they live in a papermaking industrial town called Burz.

At first Burz isn’t such a bad place, though the paper mill reeks to high heaven. But the longer he stays there, the stranger it becomes. No one will tell him where to find his relatives. Even stranger, when he mentions the name Merss, people think he’s threatening them. The witches’ coven that every Fenarian town and city should have is nowhere in evidence. And the Guild, which should be protecting the city’s craftsmen and traders, is an oppressive, all-powerful organization, into which no tradesman would ever be admitted.

Then a terrible thing happens. In its wake, far from Draegara, without his usual organization working for him, Vlad is going to have to do his sleuthing amidst an alien people: his own.

©2008 Steven Brust (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

The Care&Feeding of maltreated itinerant assassins

“You could always just go poking around and stirring things up with no plan and see what happens.”
Sweet standalone mystery, that was fun! Vlad finds himself in a far away place asking simple questions, and yet the plot quickly thickens.

Vlad: “If you’re trying to scare me, it’s working.”
Torturer: “I can do a great deal more than scare you.”
Vlad: “um, if I thought all you could do is scare me, you wouldn’t scare me, if you know what I mean.”
There’s a lot of torture, conveyed in the most surreal way. I wish more authors would go this route instead of dwelled upon the gory bits.

“The care and feeding of maltreated itinerant assassins”
This book features only Vlad, Loiosh and Rocza. It also has Vlad flat on his back for a huge chunk.
Yet, it was vastly entertaining to see him survive on his wits and limitations.