The Court of Broken Knives
Anna Smith Spark
Hardcover $14.22 paperback $10.87 ebook $4.99
(Prices current at the time of posting and subject to change)

I had intended to write this review two weeks ago when I finished the book, but I was overtaken by final exams and the usual end of the semester stuff.

The Court of Broken Knives is a finalist for the David Gemmell Morningstar Award.  I usually try (emphasis on “try”) to read these nominees because they are first novels.  The Legend Award nominees tend to be books in series I’m not current on.

But I digress.  Anna Spark Smith’s Twitter handle is queen of grimdark.  I won’t argue it.  This is a very dark book. 

The city of Sorlost has never fallen.  Over the centuries it has become secure in that fact and decadent.  Now Orhan Emmereth, a disgruntled nobleman worried about a coming war, has decided to to protect the city by assassinating the Emperor.  Part of his plan is to hire a group of mercenaries to sneak into the palace and do the dirty work.  These mercenaries make Glen Cook’s Black Company look like a troop of Boy Scouts.

Among the mercenaries is a young man named Marith.  He seems to be a reasonable symapethetic character at first.  At first.  But as the story goes on, we begin to see what a nasty piece of work Marith really is.

Of course things don’t go exactly as planned with the assassination. There will be betrayals.

The cast of the book (the ones who live, that is) are pretty unsympathetic.  Orhan in many ways is the most heroic in that his motives are noble, if not his means.  He discovers the law of unintended consequences.

Marith is hiding secrets.  I’ll not say what they are.  Discovering his background is part of the story.  Suffice to say that he’s got a history, one that portends a great deal of blood being spilled. Before the book is over, he will enter into a relationship with a woman who is fleeing the carnage Orhan released with his plans.  I found her to be the most sympathetic character by the end of the book.  At least she seems to try to put her former life of killing behind her.

This book won’t be for everyone.  The society in Sorlost practices human sacrifice on a regular basis as part of their religion, including frequent infant sacrifice.

I enjoyed the book in spite of some of the content, and I’ll keep my eye open for the second volume later this year.  The author handled multiple viewpoint characters well, and the action scenes were fast-moving and compelling.  I had trouble putting this one down, in spite of my dislike of what some of the characters were doing at times.