The Lies of Locke Lamora
In the crumbling, canal-laced city of Camorr, a Venice of glass towers and old thieves' laws, Locke Lamora leads a crew of elite con artists who call themselves the Gentleman Bastards. To the city's underworld they are minor pickpockets; in truth they run audacious long cons against Camorr's wealthiest nobles, purely for the challenge and the coin.
Locke's most elaborate swindle yet is interrupted by the rise of the Gray King, a shadowy figure murdering his way to control of the underworld and pulling the Bastards into a deadly game they never chose. Told in alternating chapters, one thread following the present-day con and its unraveling, the other the making of Locke and his crew under the priest-thief Father Chains, the novel is by turns very funny and shockingly brutal. The first book in the Gentleman Bastard sequence is a heist fantasy about loyalty, revenge, and the family you build among liars.
A brilliant, silver-tongued con artist and leader of the Gentleman Bastards.
A mysterious figure seizing Camorr's underworld by force.
Locke's loyal partner and the crew's formidable fighter.
The priest of the Crooked Warden who trained Locke and his crew.
