The 9th book in The Book of Deacon series.
I really liked this book. Desmeres is one of those characters that one just loves to read about. He’s the best at what he does, he knows it, and certainly isn’t shy about letting everyone else know it either. Now some might say they can’t abide him and his full of himself attitude and overbearing confidence, but isn’t that why James Bond is such a popular character? Isn’t that why so many of us root for our favourite sports stars? There’s that bit in all of us would just love to pile on through life with that attitude that everything will just work out ok for us because we’re so damned good at what we do, and everytime something knocks us down we’ll just bounce straight back up again and give it an even better go next time, and that’s the bit that we love reading about in characters in books, the bits that we struggle to find within ourselves.
So onto the story.
In The Battle of Verrel Desmeres had previously found himself at the bottom of a shit pit of his own digging when he did the dirty on The Chosen and helped the D’Karon for a while. And so he found himself having to lend a load of his best weapons to the Undermine in an attempt to climb out of said shit pit. But, whereas he maybe should have let them keep the weapons, Desmeres made clear that he would have them back once the D’Karon were defeated. And so we begin this book with Queen Caya and the Undermine having all their weapons stolen back by Desmeres and in doing so getting himself firmly back down in the aforementioned shit pit of everyone’s disapproval once more.
So Queen Caya is left with no choice but to assign the Elite to hunt him down and bring him to justice, if for no other reason but to save face.
And so begin the hunts and evasions around the Northern Alliance lands, while all the time Desmeres is attempting to fulfill a plan of his own for his own redemption that requires him to stay ahead of the Elite.
And i have to say, this is a great story. One of the best of the series.
Once again, as usual, great characters by Joseph, and a great plot with a few interesting and fun twists and turns, some expected and some not so expected. A really good read.
And now onto The D’Karon Apprentice.
