Jhegaala (Vlad)

Our protagonist decides to return to his homeland to find out more about his mother. He is still being chased by the fantasy mafia so it is something to do. Of course, he runs right into a nasty little situation. At heart this is a book about ignorance. It also wants to talk about the tension between peasantry and early industrialisation. As I say, this is a slow burner. It takes a while to get going but when it does, Brust has your head spinning trying to figure out what's going on. I particularly enjoyed the resolution on this one which I won't spoiler by explaining why. Another quality installment in the series. Recommended.

And I wanted so badly to like it.
I don't know, maybe I'm too stupid for this book; but throughout the vast majority of it, I had no idea why stuff was happening (and the main character actually repeatedly refuses to explain this to his supporting characters). The plot is only explained at the very end in a pretty monstrous infodump.
Add to this that almost none of the supporting cast I got to love in the rest of the series make an appearance and there is practically no action (the main dude is supposed to be a badass assassin, damnit!), and this is a rather disappointing entry in the Vlad Taltos series.