Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent (Short Stops)

The novels in the Gentleman Bastards series trace the exploits of an elite band of thieves and confidence artists moving through a city-state shaped in the image of medieval Venice. In Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent, Scott Lynch returns to the cobblestones and canals of Camorr, offering a glimpse into the formative years of one of the young Gentleman Bastards. Here, however, Locke is not yet the architect of elaborate deceptions, but a boy apprenticed to learn something wholly new and entirely unnatural: the discipline and meagre rewards of (mostly) honest, hard labour. Set against the uproar of taverns and the quiet menace of the canals, the story focuses on an unlikely companionship and the education it affords. First published in Grimdark Magazine, this edition has been expanded by the author.