From the blurb: 

Vlad Taltos is an Easterner an underprivileged human in an Empire of tall, powerful, long-lived Dragaerans. He made a career for himself in House Jhereg, the Dragaeran clan in charge of the Empire's organized crime. But the day came when the Jhereg wanted Vlad dead, and he's been on the run ever since. He has plenty of friends among the Dragaeran highborn, including an undead wizard and a god or two. But as long as the Jhereg have a price on his head, Vlad's life is messy.

Meanwhile, for years, Vlad's path has been repeatedly crossed by Devera, a small Dragaeran girl of indeterminate powers who turns up at the oddest moments in his life.

Now Devera has appeared again to lead Vlad into a mysterious, seemingly empty manor overlooking the Great Sea. Inside this structure are corridors that double back on themselves, rooms that look out over other worlds, and just maybe answers to some of Vlad's long-asked questions about his world and his place in it. If only Devera can be persuaded to stop disappearing in the middle of his conversations with her.

This is something of a closed house murder mystery that Vlad has to solve.  It's entertaining but not as good as previous installments of the series.  I miss the inclusion of Vlad's usual cast of unusual friends and acquaintances.

 

NOTE:  While this novel is a complete story, new readers will miss out on references to previous books in the series.

I'm listening to the audiobook. I love this reader, he does female voices really well. I think it's been artificially pitched higher for the Kiera parts, but it sounds natural, like how a woman speaks, and when Kiera quotes Vlad he sounds like how a man being quoted by a woman sounds.

Perhaps three and a half stars~Initial thoughts: good, but not one of his best. The novel is more like four vignettes; a short story by Devera, a story about an elaborate distraction and con done during the days when Vlad was engaged with Cawti, an incident involving the Jenoine that involves Khaavren, Cawit, Daro and Norathar and another story that is more "current," when he meets Khaavren. The characters are well done as always, but the tiassa as object remains a mystery. Otherwise, Tiassa could very well refer to the Tiassa people, specifically Khaavren. I liked the stories, they were certainly true to the overall Taltos stories and fit well with other storylines. All four were told in different voices; the Devera section was more like a diary, the the Vlad story was told in typical early Taltos style, the third more like later Vlad or the Phoenix Guard style. The Paarfi voice made a reappearance for the last story, which was a little odd. I was expecting more of a cohesive novel similar to others in the Cycle series, but this was almost more of a "filler" book, or a short story book than a true installment in the Vlad chronicles. I look forward to the next. It seems like Brust has had some challenges of late that include a return to Minnesota; I wish him well with many more stories.It was fun to see a picture of the cycle in it's entirety; I confess the pictures of some of the animals were nothing like the mental images I had.

Macmillan's Free Book Day!

Left me constantly hungry. ;o) Nice to see Kragar again for a bit and Vlad back on track plotting and observing...