So, after surviving whatever it was they survived at the end of Red Seas, far too long ago to remember - except for the bit about the cat and the ship and the old sailor guy, that was hilarious - Locke is near death, Jean is near exhaustion and the Bondsmagi are back and this time they're looking for someone to rig an election! That's right! We've gone from Donald E Westlake in Fantasyland to Ross Thomas in MadeupPlace! Except for the flashback half of the book! Which is Some Theatrical Memoir I Haven't Read in ConjuredCountry!

I know people were down on Red Seas, but I enjoyed it. Lynch turns his heists and long cons into epics by sheer dint of throwing mischance, setback, betrayal, complication, catastrophe and impossible situations by the dozen at our lovable rogues. I thought it showed flair to interrupt a complex robbery by despatching the robbers on ship to the far side of the world for a whole series of piratical adventures which they have to survive, extract themselves from and then somehow make their way back to the scene of the soon-to-be-crime where more disasters and unwinnable stand-offs await their tired selves. Hm. Remembering more of it than I thought.

Anywhoo, no setback quite so epic happens to either of the storylines here, but that doesn't mean that massive logs don't get dropped every ten yards on the tracks ahead the Good Train Gentlemen Bastards. In the past, Master Chains sends his troublesome charges for a bit of seasoning to a far-off city to help run a theatre troupe for a season. When they get there, the troupe has fallen apart, and the director is in prison for a year. Things generally go downhill from there. In the present, Jean and Locke are inveigled to rig an election in the home city of the Bondsmagi. Nobody really cares who wins, it's just a sort of hands-off competition to entertain the magicians. Much to the shock of absolutely no-one except our doughty heroes, the opposing side have brought in the love of Locke's life, ex-Gentleman Bastard Sabetha, who has a had start on them and uses it with admirable ruthlessness.

So the past story we know everyone survives, but they're also thoroughly engaged in what they're doing and the GBs must pull of unlikely miracles to keep the show on the road. In the present story, no-one really cares about the politics, but they have to put on a good show, with plenty of tricks and schemes and corruption and bluffs and double-bluffs and, not incidentally, a crucial revelation about Locke and more vague hints about threats that will, no doubt, feature in volumes to come.

Thus Lynch makes a big book out of two smaller, tighter, leaner narratives than in either Books One or Two. Clever. I enjoyed it. What more do you want?