The Palace Job

The Palace Job - Patrick Weekes

This was quite a bit of fun, and if you're looking for a rather boisterous fantasy heist, this is going to be right up your alley.

 

This was not my absolute favorite fantasy heist book (though wow do I love having choices; that is fantastic), but I will definitely be picking up the sequels, because I enjoyed this quite a bit.

 

The humor was a bit overblown for me in a few places (it reminded me a bit of Discworld, which is probably a huge endorsement for some but kind of ended up a series I didn't quite "get"), and the characters, while rather charming, weren't quite fully dimensional enough for me--they felt a little too much like tropes, which is perfectly fine for a fun ride but not quite as good for anything deeper.

 

The story (once it gets going--this is a slow start) is quite a bit of fun, with twists and turns galore, and lots of quick clever little comments from our characters (I keep wanting to call them a "party", like a D&D party). This is more of a burglary than a con, in case you were wondering exactly what flavor of heist you had signed up for, and it remarkably light-hearted for the material it contains.

 

The biggest problem with the story itself is that it feels a little all-over-the-place at times. Part of the slow start was due to that--there was a lot of jumping around before everything was established, and there are an awful lot of characters to keep track on top of it, so things were a tad confusing at times. Not really "I will understand this once everything is revealed" confusing, but "Er, wait, are we over here for a particular reason now?" confusing, which is not as much fun.

 

I will definitely be picking up the rest of the series eventually, because they absolutely are pleasurable reads and now I feel invested in the characters.

 

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.