Thick as Thieves

4.5 starsThis book restored my faith in Megan Whalen Turner. After [b:A Conspiracy of Kings 6527841 A Conspiracy of Kings (The Queen's Thief, #4) Megan Whalen Turner https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1295475418l/6527841.SY75.jpg 6719799], I was unsure of her ability to recapture the magic of Books 2 & 3, but she successfully did so here. It's still not quite as good but it very nearly is. Kamet is as complex and compelling a character as Eugenides and Attolia. Unlike Sophos, I wasn't bothered by his narrative.TL;DR: Megan Whalen Turner restored my faith in these characters. In Book4 it was hard to tell the difference between them and their enemies but in this book, it once again became clear why they were the ones I was rooting for and not the Medeans. I was also reminded of why I didn't mind Eugenides' more cruel actions in Book 2 & 3, while being disturbed by Sophos'. While Gen is often manipulative, he is never overtly violent. He also always tempers his more cruel actions with kindness and the acknowledgement of his own wrong. In [b:The King of Attolia 40159 The King of Attolia (The Queen's Thief, #3) Megan Whalen Turner https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1293505327l/40159.SY75.jpg 847545], when he arrests Sejanus and exiles Dite in the fall of Erondites, he feels remorseful for their personal destruction but acknowledges that it was a necessary evil. “I'm sorry, Dite.” Dite shrugged away the apology. “You have spared my brother when you could have killed him and you have offered me an escape from the cesspit of my family and this court. You know what it means to me, to make music in the court of Ferria. You've put a purse and an impossible dream in my hand. I don't know why you should apologize.” “Because I am exiling you, Dite. I intend to raze your patrimony and salt its earth. You emphatically do not need to thank me.”“It isn't revenge, Sejanus,” said this new incarnation of the king. “I wouldn't destroy an entire house to destroy one man. But I would destroy a man to destroy a house. Your brother will be exiled, your house will fall, not because I happen to hate you, but because Erondites controls more land, and more men, than any four other barons, stacked together and has proved to be dangerous over and over. Its very existence is a threat to the throne. It will not survive,” he said again. Also, we never see him execute anyone on-page, we are vaguely aware that he will have to as king ( he says so over and over again), but we never see it happen. In fact, we see him pardon people who likely should according to the traditions of that time, have been executed.In the same way, when Kamet arrives he apologises to him for taking away his dream of wielding immense power as the emperor's head slave. He said, “I've taken something from you that I had no right to take. As Laela did. I hope you will forgive us both.” .As Relius said “He's very tenderhearted,” said Relius. “He'll feel quite bad about it as he cuts you up into little pieces and feeds you to wolves.” . Perhaps as a reader, it made it easier to swallow Gen's occasional cruelty because it was so often tempered with kindness. But I also like to think that until Book 4, it had always seemed neither unnecessarily violent nor cruel. In this book, I returned to feeling like in a cruel and often barbaric world, our characters were doing the best they could to cause as little harm as possible.