The Thief’s Gamble

The Thief’s Gamble (1999) Juliet E. McKenna

In the past, I have refused to pick up a series unless I can get all the books in that series. Because there’s little worse than starting a series and then not being about to find the rest of it. However, because I can now order books on-line, and have them delivered to my door at little or no additional cost, I realized that I can start taking a chance on a single book, with the knowledge that I can order the rest of the series even if I can’t find the books locally. So, I picked up The Thief’s Gamble because it looked interesting (and also because the series is completed).

I was quite pleased to discover that I liked and enjoyed the book, and am looking forward to the rest of the series. The book has several things to recommend it. First, the story is engaging, and drew me in quickly–I wanted to know what happened. Second, I liked the characters. For some unknown reason, I’m particularly fond of reading about thieves and assassins, so a main character who is a thief is right up my alley. Thirdly, although this book is part of a series, much of the storyline wraps up, so that I’m not left hanging as to what is going to happen to the characters. Juliet McKenna makes you want to read the next book not because you have to find out how the characters get themselves out of a fix, but because you want to read more about the characters. Kudos for that, and if the remainder of the series follows the same pattern, she’ll be high up on my favorite authors list, just for that.

As for the story, Livak needs to make a quick buck so she can keep waiting for her sometimes partner who was supposed to meet her days earlier. Livak is a gambler by trade, and sometimes a thief by necessity, and it’s thieving that she uses to cover her stay at the inn. Unfortunately for her, trying to sell the goods gets her more than she expected.

Although The Thief’s Gamble is not a short book, it is a relatively quick read. We aren’t bogged down with excessive details, but instead have an adventure that moves right along. My only issue is that in the beginning, too many characters were introduced at once, and I had a hard time keeping them straight. When she introduces the mages back in Hadrumal, there are several of them (four? five?) all in a room, and I absolutely could not keep straight how many mages there were in the conversation, who said what, and which mage was which. In fact, even towards the end of the book I was still having difficulty keeping a couple of the mages straight. However, these mages were, for the most part, peripheral to this story, and I did not have problems keeping the rest of the characters straight. And by the end I was better able to recognize several of the mages.

Additionally, I liked the cover. It wasn’t anything special, and the heroine is drawn with the wrong color hair, however she’s dressed in reasonable, realistic clothes–boots, leggings, tunic, and cloak. And the long knife/short sword she’s holding looks like a perfectly serviceable weapon that she could easily manage. Good job!

So it was a good story, with good characters, and fun to read. Definitely one that I recommend.
Rating: 7/10

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