Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie.
I really liked Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy (FLT). It was a corrective in some respects to the more insipid high fantasy which infests bookstores. Abercrombie writes in an unabashedly adult and quite profane style. So I bought his new novel "Best Served Cold" (BSC)with high expectations.

BSC is quite similar to FLT. It is set in the same world, more than a few of the minor characters from FLT show up in BSC and it has some of the same themes-what does revenge really profit someone, how can you be good in an evil world, are men and women really all that different, and does what anyone does in life really matter in the long term. After all good or bad, we all end up "back in the mud" as one warrior reasons.

It is a stand-alone book. You can read it and enjoy it without having read FLT. Reading BSC will not spoil FLT.

The story opens with the mercenary leader Monza Murcatto and her brother Benna being invited to an honorary event by her employer, the Grand Duke Orso. It is no spoiler to reveal that Orso has decided that he can't trust either of the Murcattos any longer and has them both murdered. Or so he thinks. Monza, who is also known as the Butcher of Caprile and the Snake of Tallins for her brutal style of warfare, improbably survives and swears to take out Orso, Orso's sons and everyone else who was in the room when her brother was murdered and she was scarred for life.

We have the woman obsessed with revenge, her motley crew of recruited quirky psychopaths and money hungry killers who will assist her and may betray her, old lovers or would-be lovers showing up and of course an ice cold murderer who is dispatched to put her down for good. In short, although the ride is exciting, it's not exactly a new story. There are more than few shout outs to "Kill Bill" and "The Princess Bride".

Abercrombie gets a little lazier about national stereotypes. Styria, where all of the action takes place is SO MUCH of a stand-in for Renaissance Italy that one wonders why Abercrombie just didn't do away with the pretense entirely and set his tale in 15th century Italy. It would have read EXACTLY the same. Murcatto is somewhat based on the real life terror Caterina Sforza. Many of the names Abercrombie uses are either real life Italian names or sound as if they could have been- Vinari, Nicomo Cosmo, Grand Duke Orso, etc.

Women have several key roles in the book. This is not done in any sort of riot-grrrl feminist style but more or less realistically. Abercrombie's female characters are just as self-centered,morally vacuous, flawed and dangerous as his male ones. Abercrombie maintains a sharp ear for dialogue. I think he has an advantage over Simon Green in that regard. No one stops in the middle of a fight to say something snarky. And it is not a given as to who will survive. There's (virtually)no magic, and no elves, dwarves or anything like that. It's very grim and realistic. People actually get tired and make mistakes. Lovers quarrel and cheat, etc.

It was literally impossible to sympathize with ANYONE in this book. Perhaps that was what Abercrombie wanted. Unlike say Quentin Tarentino or Rob Zombie he does not make heroes out of what are after all evil characters.

BUT it would be nice to see what Abercrombie could do with characters who are not 100% selfish, twisted , sadistic and cynical. Some humans actually do try to do the right thing and succeed from time to time. That's part of the Hero's Journey in which Abercrombie doesn't seem to have much interest.

Maybe his point is that there is NOTHING heroic about war, revenge or killing and pretending otherwise is stupid. Perhaps.

But if you read this book keep in mind that no one in it is anything close to good.
There is not much of a character arc for anyone. Those who are openly evil remain so. Some people that appear to be decent are revealed to be evil. And even those few people that try to be good eventually decide that being good doesn't work and become as evil as anyone. As one person says repeatedly "Mercy and cowardice are the same thing". Just to make this point crystal clear the author opens chapters with quotes from Machiavelli and various Borgias.

There was one depressed, socially maladroit, verbose poisoner-very reminiscent of the Tom Hanks' role in The Ladykillers who was in some respects the closest thing the book had to a voice of reason. Outside of that though the book is EXTREMELY nihilistic.

So all in all don't get me wrong. I did enjoy it -just not as much as FLT. FLT actually did have a few people try (and usually fail) to do the heroic thing. FLT had better misdirection and slower reveals. There are more than a few moments of humor in this book-mostly centered around the aforementioned poisoner.

It's a very long book-over 600 pages and may have been helped by a bit more editing. 3 out of 5 stars.