Review: Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner

From Goodreads: Deep within the palace of the Mede emperor, in an alcove off the main room of his master’s apartments, Kamet minds his master’s business and his own. Carefully keeping the accounts, and his own counsel, Kamet has accumulated a few possessions, a little money stored in the household’s cashbox, and a significant amount of personal power. As a slave, his fate is tied to his master’s. If Nahuseresh’s fortunes improve, so will Kamet’s, and Nahuseresh has been working diligently to promote his fortunes since the debacle in Attolia. A soldier in the shadows offers escape, but Kamet won’t sacrifice his ambition for a meager and unreliable freedom; not until a whispered warning of poison and murder destroys all of his carefully laid plans. When Kamet flees for his life, he leaves behind everything - his past, his identity, his meticulously crafted defenses - and finds himself woefully unprepared for the journey that lies ahead. Pursued across rivers, wastelands, salt plains, snowcapped mountains, and storm-tossed seas, Kamet is dead set on regaining control of his future and protecting himself at any cost. Friendships - new and long-forgotten - beckon, lethal enemies circle, secrets accumulate, and the fragile hopes of the little kingdoms of Attolia, Eddis, and Sounis hang in the balance. 

My Rating: 3.5 hearts 

Thoughts on the Novel: Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner was a book that I had been waiting for for years – the previous book in The Queen’s Thief series, A Conspiracy of Kings, was released in 2010 – so when it came out, I put aside all the books I was reading to see what Eugenides was up to now. To my disappointment, there wasn’t much of Eugenides in Thick as Thieves. Instead, Thick as Thieves’ main character is Kamet, a Mede slave whose master, Nahuseresh, is the Mede ambassador to Attolia.

Though I liked Thick as Thieves because Turner continues to build her world and expand on little details from the other books in the series, I didn’t enjoy it as much as her previous novels. Kamet doesn’t hold a candle to Eugenides as a protagonist; and with two books now where Eugenides hasn’t been the main character, I’m really missing his perspective. In addition, the political machinations that made me fall in love with The Queen’s Thief series were more subtle in Thick as Thieves because the focus was on Kamet’s flight of safety from the Mede empire to Attolia, a country that he considers “more backward than anywhere [he] has ever known” (4% on my Kindle). Finally, while I loved the little stories about the gods of Eddis in The Thief for example, I wasn’t as enamoured by the story of the friendship between Immakuk and Ennikar (which seems to be inspired by the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu from the Epic of Gilgamesh) and ended up skimming those parts.

Thick as Thieves was released by Greenwillow Books in May 2017. 

Comments About the Cover: I miss the style of the old covers!