The hook: two thieves break into the castle on a last-minute=job to steal a sword, and discover the freshly dead body of the King. You guessed it--the guards who are too happy to pin the murder on them!
This book (or series, really, there are three of them) is romping good fun. The author does a marvelous job of foiling the two main characters (Hadrian Blackwater and Royce Melborn) against each other (and I totally love their names...love them). Hadrian is the kind of guy who you wouldn't mind walking your teenaged daughter to her car at night (he carries three swords, what could go wrong?)...while Royce is a cynical sour pickle of a man who I somehow still find deeply endearing. While there is nothing original in the world building, or perhaps even in the plot, this is a remarkably well executed book. So if you like fairies, dwarfs, dragons, big swords, and humorous dialogue, pick up this book.
Genre wise, the first books is heroic fantasy...by the end of the third book, it has safely morphed into epic fantasy.
Dialogue: 10/10...should make you laugh a goodly bit. Especially when the characters start arguing like an old married couple.
Plot: 7/10...predictable, perhaps, but not trite. I found myself guessing a great deal more in the later books then I did in this first one.
Characters: 8/10...The main characters are fabulous, but the prince is a little flat. This changes as the series progresses.
Content: 8/10--Watch out for the opening scene with the prince (it's brief, and the only explicit scene of that nature in the series). Beyond that, there are are obviously a number of people who die (and yes, bad stuff does happen to good people), but this is a fairly light hearted book.
Magic System: 5/10...pretty basic stuff.
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