Reviews

Does Red Seas compare to its predecessor? Yes, despite not quite living up. Mission: Impossible meets Ocean’s 11 meets Black Sails if it was directed by David Fincher. It had been a few months since I’d read The Lies of Locke Lamora. And despite that, the first few chapters of this entry still had me on the edge of my seat as the consequences from their first adventure started to be realized. My heart was beating just as quickly as if it were happening to me. There was a definite slog in the middle of this book that I powered through as they learned what they needed to know for their mission. But once they set sail, I was back in! The ending may not be as classic as the first book, but I think it did live up to the IP. The biggest downgrade from Lies was definitely the flashbacks for me. I was having trouble differentiating between that & the present. It felt forced to just match the organization of the first book. I would’ve preferred to just read the flashbacks & then immediately go Into the current story. The real strength of this book was the same as Lies: the characters & their relationships with one another. When something happened to one of them, Lynch was brilliant in making me feel the event through the eyes of someone I truly believed loved them. That’s hard to do & he is one of the best in the genre at that. I’ll be ready to read Republic of Thieves just a few books into my TBR!