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[alyson]

This book is about the tenth in Brust's Vlad Taltos series.

Vlad lives in an alternate world, in which humans are native but not the dominant intelligent species, and he used to be the equivalent of a member of the mob. Now he's not, they want to kill him, and his ex-wife seems to be in some sort of trouble that he feels duty-bound to deal with.

Since Vlad isn't always likable or even respectable (by the reader), I often have to brace myself to read books from this series. Vlad can be a pretentious, semi-misogynistic, condescending jackass. However, the writing is smooth and entertaining, pretty much fluffy, the action is quick, Vlad's got interesting friends, and there's almost always pretty satisfying descriptions of food.

This book is typical of the series: he's in danger, he digs himself deeper, he makes a few logical jumps that I have to reread to figure out, he butches out a solution (ie "you're bigger than me but I'm smarter than you and have a magic something-or-other; that means I win even though I'm not really better off than I was before,") the end.

In conclusion: I do like these books enough to keep them and reread them, and to collect the series. Obviously I like them. But be warned: they take a specific mood, and they're basically fluff.
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Eschew obfuscation.

[Eisworth]

My wife really loves these books. I'm not sure if we have them all as "Dzur" doesn't sound familiar.
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Todd Eisworth
Associate Professor of Mathematics
Ohio University

[alyson]

It was published in 2006 and appears to follow the book Issola.

I've met one or two people who really liked him a lot a lot. For your wife, may I recommend Emma Bull? She's buddies with Brust, and I think they've even cowritten stuff before.
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Eschew obfuscation.