When someone starts killing his fellow bounty hunters in the port of Fairhaven, Drago Appleroot is happy to help his contacts in the City Watch with their investigation—for a reasonable fee, of course. But posing as an assassin-for-hire to draw out the killer attracts the attention of two separate groups from a far-off Elven kingdom whose private war is being fought on the streets of his home town.
Pitched into a maelstrom of treachery and lethal politics, Drago is forced into a long and dangerous journey to the heart of the Sylvan Marches, where one determined gnome might just decide the destiny of a kingdom. If he can survive long enough to decide which side he ought to be on.
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Fun, but...Alex Stewart is a smooth writer with a good ear for dialogue. Despite that, I came away disappointed. The book’s setting felt very generic and a bit too much like Glen Cook’s Garrett stories. Also, despite being told that our hero was a gnome, and that other characters were elves, goblins, or humans, I thought no effort at all was made to distinguish between the races/species. So why bother? Felt a bit mailed in. I hope Stewart returns to the science fiction setting of his prior Baen book.
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