Book #215 of 2018:

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch (Gentleman Bastard #3)

I have such mixed feelings about this book and what it portends for the rest of its series. In part that’s because it’s trying to do three very different things, and I think it accomplishes them with varying degrees of success.

First, this novel aims to fill in the backstory of Sabetha Belacoros, a key figure who has been mentioned but never seen in the first two Gentleman Bastard books. She’s long been the missing member of the central gang, and she finally takes the stage as a young girl and teenager interacting with our returning heroes. These scenes are fantastic, easily slotting into the gaps that author Scott Lynch has left in the backstory and paying dividends for the disjointed flashback structure he’s employed from the beginning. Sabetha herself clarifies the group dynamic a lot, and the story unfolding in the past is poignant and fun. I wish Lynch had included the sole female Bastard well before this, but he does a lot in these pages to make her feel like a real character and not just a requisite love interest for his male lead.

The second goal of the book is to tell the latest adventure of the Gentlemen Bastards gang in the present, including their reconnection with an adult Sabetha. This part of the story just about works on a character level, but there are simply no stakes to the actual plot. The conmen protagonists are forced into rigging an election for a puppet government, but since it literally doesn’t matter whether they succeed or not, it’s hard for me as a reader to really care or even believe that the characters do.

And finally, there are moments in this novel that are presumably intended to set up further adventures in the series (although five years later, there is still no word of when the next book can be expected). These parts work the least for me, and I find pretty much everything to do with the Bondsmagi and Locke Lamora’s mysterious background frustratingly clunky and trope-filled in a way that Lynch has previously managed to avoid.

On balance, I’m not sure how to weight these different elements against one another or judge this title as a whole. I love most everything to do with the added character history, but I worry that the series is rapidly losing its way with the story being told here and now.

★★★☆☆

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