Just finished reading The Perfect Assassin by K.A. Doore
Well-written fantasy mystery in a unique setting. I especially liked the way the worldbuilding was handled, with the explanations of how water is the source of life, source of magic, and currency trickled out over the course of the novel.
A brief synopsis: A kid named Amastan has been training for most of his life to be an assassin, and now that his training is finished is relieved to find that he won’t actually be sent to kill anyone anytime soon. Unfortunately, someone else is out there killing people, which–in a city where the souls of the dead turn into mad and murderous spirits if they aren’t quickly found and subdued with the proper rituals–is a pretty big problem. So he gets put to the task of figuring out just who’s out there killing people, and why they seem to be targeting his fellow assassins. Along the way he falls in love with a handsome stranger, fights spirits in the desert, gets into a few good knife fights, and learns quite a bit about the true history of his assassin family.
Some criticism:
The big twist of the book was telegraphed a mile off. I’m not sure if that was intentional or not–it might have been deliberate dramatic irony. Either way, it made me want to hurry up and get to the part where the characters knew what I already knew, so we could move on to new things together.
The main character’s philosophy could have done with more challenging, I think. I never really bought his explanation of why he thought the assassin family was good for the city, which was especially glaring when there was another character perfectly positioned to argue with him about it who wasn’t given very poor arguments and was described as being consumed with hate instead of having any rational reason to be fighting against people who murder for money by order of the city’s rulers. It felt like a missed opportunity to make the main character question and/or defend his life choices in an interesting way.
The real good stuff in this novel is the character interactions and specific details rather than the overall plot. Few stereotypes, good well-rounded characters, an interesting culture that actually affects the way the characters think and the way the story unfolds, and a gay love story that I wasn’t expecting from the book jacket description but nevertheless enjoyed. By the end of the novel it had become less of an assassin mystery book and more of a character drama that happened to feature masked assassins in a city adrift in a sea of sand. Not what I was expecting, but still very entertaining.
Recommended for fans of Arabian nights, soap-opera-level character drama, and assassin fights.