Dragged by Finn to an auction so they can paw through the
remains of Mab’s estate, Gin is predicting a boring night (certainly more
boring than dress shopping with added fun mugging).
A boring night that quickly becomes slightly nightmarish when she sees her sort-of-ex-Owen with another woman on what may be a date.
Thankfully relationship issues are rapidly overruled by a new threat – art thieves with guns, bombs and a willingness to shoot hostages.
The Spider just can’t have a night off.
In have to say, I wasn’t that thrilled with this story. I
mean, the action was well done and well written as usual, I love these
characters and the setting was intriguing. It had action, it had excitement, it
had this wonderful world I love.
But it came down to being “Gin goes somewhere, bad guys
try to rob it, Gin stops them.” I actually had trouble writing a summary that
wasn’t just one sentence. I kept waiting for the whole museum robbery to end
and us to move on to the main plot now the prologue has finished until I got to
75% in and I realised, wait, this is actually the whole story. There’s no real
twists, no grand revelations, there’s a couple of side issues taking up a tiny
amount of room, but that’s about it. It’s a linear, simple, action story.
I mean, it’s good at that. The fights scenes are
excellent and there’s a wonderful bit of stylistic writing in that Gin often
stops and watches her prey for a long time before actually acting. It can be
really frustrating reading because you’re urging her to move and she isn’t –
but she is the Spider, renowned for her patience and that was really brought
home in this book; just how patient she is, how long she is willing to wait for
the ideal situation. Except… someone was actually bleeding to death while she
was being this patient. Great stylistically, a bit less so in terms of fitting
the situation.
And I liked her flashback with Fletcher, giving another
sense of who she was and how she became who she is – but also the ruthlessness
that has been instilled into her. I liked it, it would have been great
character development for… someone who wasn’t Gin. Sorry, but while I loved so
much of it, the idea of Gin getting the job done no matter what, even if it
meant using a loved one as bait, doesn’t quite gel with how she’s acted towards
her extended family.
I’d also quite like her skill as an assassin be showed by
her not getting hurt in a battle rather than her constantly being severely
beaten before getting magical healing – less kamikaze Gin and more skilful,
awesome Gin.
Having said that, I think it’s a real mistake to look at
any of the Elemental Assassin’s series in terms of individual books – this is
one of those series that works incredibly well as a collective whole. The
pacing of the series, the way each book is presented as its place in the series
and general development of the series are all extremely well done – looked at
as a whole the writing and organisation is incredible, some of the best I’ve
ever read.
