The Lies of Locke Lamora
Scott Lynch
 After a devastating plague, a man known as the Thiefmaker pays off the city guard to allow him to take in thirty newly-orphaned individuals, whom he plans to train as thieves. One orphan sneaks into the group of paid children, "thirty-one of thirty". The Thiefmaker soon discovers that this one child, Locke Lamora, is extremely clever but not "circumspect", and is a liability due to his lack of foresight or restraint. The Thiefmaker decides to sell Locke to Chains, a priest of the Nameless Thirteenth god, the Crooked Warden who protects thieves. Chains uses a temple dedicated to one of the twelve respectable gods as a front to operate the Gentlemen Bastards. They play confidence games on the city's richest citizens. This in defiance of the Secret Peace ,an unspoken agreement between the criminal underground and nobility of Camorr that establishes a toleration of thievery and mischief as long as the nobility are not targeted). Over time, Locke becomes known as the "Thorn of Camorr", an identity which is never linked to Locke, who maintains the pretense of being a perfectly ordinary sneak thief. In time, Locke becomes garrista (leader) of the Gentlemen Bastards. His crew includes Jean Tannen, an expert fighter (especially with hatchets- his favorite pair is nicknamed "The Wicked Sisters"); Calo and Galdo Sanza, a pair of jack-of-all-trades twins; a young apprentice named Bug; and a woman named Sabetha, whom Locke loves and who, for unspecified reasons, does not appear in the novel. At the beginning of the novel, the Gentlemen Bastards are commencing an elaborate confidence game against Don Lorenzo Salvara and his wife. Locke pretends to be Lukas Fehrwight, a representative of a powerful foreign brandy brewing family that needs to get its stock out of its home state before it erupts into civil war. During the course of this con, a mysterious figure named the Gray King begins killing prominent members of the criminal community. Soon, the Gray King confronts Locke and due to Locke's skills at deception, coerces him to impersonate the Gray King during a meeting with Capa Barsavi, head of Camorr's criminal underworld. It is also revealed that the Gray King employs a Bondsmage, a member of an exclusive guild of sorcerers who are infamous for both the ridiculous fees required to acquire their services and the wrath they collectively bring down on any individual or group that kills one of their members. Despite reassurances that the Bondsmage's magic will protect Locke, things go awry during the meeting. While the Bondsmage's sorcery prevents Locke from being cut or pierced, it confers no superhuman strength, and does not protect against blunt trauma. When the Capa's men discover this, they wrestle him to the ground and capture him. Locke realizes that his capture and execution was the Gray King's plan all along, in order to lower Barsavi's guard. Furthermore, Locke cannot reveal his true identity to Barsavi as the Capa would kill not only him, but the other Gentleman Bastards as well. After a brutal and lengthy beating, Locke is sealed in a funeral cask filled with horse urine and thrown into the harbor. Confident that his enemy is dead, Barsavi invites the entire underworld to a celebration in his headquarters, a dry-docked ship. At the height of the celebration, Barsavi is assassinated by his twin bodyguards (actually the Gray King's sisters), who also kill Barsavi's sons, and his most trusted underlings. The Gray King appears before the stunned onlookers, and takes the name "Capa Raza", declaring himself the new head of the underworld. With help from Bug and Jean, Locke is saved, and they return to the Bastards' home to find it ransacked and Calo and Galdo killed. One of the Gray King's men is lying in wait, and kills Bug before being killed by Locke. Enraged, Locke swears revenge. Down at the docks, Jean kills the Gray King's sisters, while Locke tries to complete the confidence game with what few resources he still possesses. Unfortunately, the Salvaras have been tipped off to Locke's scam; they invite him to the nobility's party on the city's most important holiday, where he is nearly captured by the city's spymaster. After escaping and fleeing to one of his hideouts, Locke finds the Bondsmage waiting for him, already having incapacitated Jean. By exploiting the bondsmage's arrogance and psychic link with his scorpion-hawk familiar, Locke and Jean barely manage to subdue him, and proceed to torture the Gray King's secrets out of him. Wary of the ruthless reputation of the Bondsmagi, the Gentlemen spare the Bondsmage's life, but remove his fingers and tongue rendering him unable to practice his craft. From the Bondsmage, we learn that when the Gray King was a boy, his father had opposed the brokering of the Secret Peace, resulting in the execution of nearly his entire family. In the intervening years, the Gray King's consuming hatred had driven him to build up a vast amount of wealth and stage his complex plot against Capa Barsavi and the nobility of Camorr. His revenge on Barsavi complete, the Gray King turns to exact vengeance upon the nobility. For this, he arranges the delivery of four sculptures as "gifts" to the Duke of Camorr. The statues are actually timebombs filled with Wraithstone (a dangerous mineral used to "gentle" animals, effectively turning them into passive vegetables) and are set to explode at nightfall. Locke rushes back to the party, and manages to warn the assembled nobles before the bombs go off. In view of his selflessness, and despite his numerous crimes against the nobility of Camorr, Locke is allowed to leave to go after the Gray King himself. In single combat aboard the Gray King's ship, Locke finds himself completely outmatched against the Gray King, but manages to trick him and ultimately kill him, avenging his fallen brethren. The novel ends with Jean and Locke aboard a ship setting off for a new life.