'One of my top ten books ever. Maybe top five. If you haven't read it, you should' Patrick Rothfuss, New York Times bestselling author of The Name of the Wind
'Fresh, original and engrossing' George R.R. Martin, the phenomenon behind A Game of Thrones
They say that the Thorn of Camorr can beat anyone in a fight. They say he steals from the rich and gives to the poor. They say he's part man, part myth, and mostly street-corner rumor. And they are wrong on every count.
Only averagely tall, slender, and god-awful with a sword, Locke Lamora is the fabled Thorn, and the greatest weapons at his disposal are his wit and cunning. He steals from the rich - they're the only ones worth stealing from - but the poor can go steal for themselves. What Locke cons, wheedles and tricks into his possession is strictly for him and his band of fellow con-artists and thieves: the Gentleman Bastards.
Together their domain is the city of Camorr. Built of Elderglass by a race no-one remembers, it's a city of shifting revels, filthy canals, baroque palaces and crowded cemeteries. Home to Dons, merchants, soldiers, beggars, cripples, and feral children. And to Capa Barsavi, the criminal mastermind who runs the city.
But there are whispers of a challenge to the Capa's power. A challenge from a man no one has ever seen, a man no blade can touch. The Grey King is coming.
A man would be well advised not to be caught between Capa Barsavi and The Grey King. Even such a master of the sword as the Thorn of Camorr. As for Locke Lamora ...
Readers can't get enough of Locke Lamora:
'Original, engrossing, emotional, and devastatingly impactful; this extremely well-written tale of avarice and brotherhood is a treasure of gold, and you will want your share of it' Novel Notions
'A rewarding read, well written, and entertaining. I'd recommend any fantasy fan to give it a try' Mark Lawrence, Sunday Times bestselling author
'It is witty, profane, violent, over the top, and frequently hilarious. I can't believe this is Scott Lynch's first novel, and I can't wait to read more. This is an incredibly fun adventure novel. Find yourself a copy and read it' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'You guys, this story is unreal. It's so morally wrong that you don't even want it to be right. It's that luring, that gritty, that bold . . . its masterfully chaotic - so many subplots, so many characters, so much world-building. theres never a dull moment . . . its intricately woven - no movement, no scene, no word is insignificant. Everything is so interconnected on so many levels. I straight up got chills in some parts' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'A love child of Ocean's Eleven and The Godfather. With blood, deaths, betrayals, money, and drowning in horse urine . . . and it's SO. GOOD' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'It stole hours of sleep. It wrapped me in cozy myth. It gave me the blessing of feeling like a kid again, snuggled up with a book, wondering how the hell 10pm became 4am. Find. Buy. Consume' Pierce Brown, bestselling author of the Red Rising series
'I mean seriously, I loved all those characters and their cunning and deceiving ways. XD Throughout the entire book I never knew what to expect and there were about a ton of "Oh, sh*t!" moments that were shortly followed by "Jeez! NO!" and "What happened now?" exclamations' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

by R. F. Kuang
Like Locke, your protagonist here is a street orphan with nothing but cunning and desperation, but Kuang takes that foundation into grimdark military fantasy where every clever move has devastating consequences. The intricate plotting and unreliable narrator voice—where you're constantly reassessing what you thought you knew—mirrors Lynch's structural trickery, except the cons here are waged on a continental scale with shamanic magic and moral devastation.
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by Joe Abercrombie
Abercrombie shares Lynch's gift for making you root for characters who absolutely shouldn't be rooted for, and his prose has that same wry, profane humor that makes violence feel darkly comic rather than gratuitous. Where Lynch's Camorr is a city of intricate schemes, Abercrombie's world is built on the same principle—everyone's playing angles, nobody's truly heroic, and the real game is far more complex than the surface plot suggests.
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by George MacDonald
This might seem like a left turn from Locke's street-thief energy, but hear me out: where Lynch excels at showing you how power operates through deception and alliance-building, Addison does something equally intricate by showing how power operates through *courtesy and genuine connection*. It's got the same obsessive attention to detail in worldbuilding, the same pleasure in watching a clever protagonist navigate a hostile court, but the weapons are kindness instead of cons—and somehow that's just as thrilling.
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by Brandon Sanderson
Published in 2005, this has the same architectural precision to its magic system that makes you want to reread it immediately—Sanderson treats magical rules the way Lynch treats con artistry, as a system to be mastered and exploited. The book juggles multiple POV characters with competing agendas in a fallen city, and watching them all maneuver around each other has that same satisfying complexity as the Gentleman Bastards' schemes, except the stakes involve literal divine intervention.
View bookBorn 1978
American writer
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