 Two years after Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen fled Camorr, they have created new secret identities for themselves in the island city of Tal Verrar as professional gamblers at an opulent casino called the Sinspire.The establishment, run by a man named Requin and his disfigured lover Selendri, has a policy that anyone caught cheating at the games is to be killed no matter how high-born they may be.Locke and Jean have been constantly cheating at the games despite this, primarily by manipulating the subtle weaknesses of their gambling opponents, and have gone through many procedures across Tal Verrar and nearby regions to find a way to break into Requin's heavily fortified vault.