Early on, in the prologue, Brust has Taltos, in his role as first-person narrator, explain: "Well, I guess there's no point in telling you about what happened before either way. If you've been with me before, you know; if you haven't, you'd never believe it." This decision to omit an impossibly long synopsis is certainly wise—the novice reader, such as myself, quickly picks up the relevant threads, given Brust's clarity of description—but it does produce some moments where Brust's intended resonances fall flat.

In any case, to the story: In the fantasyland Taltos inhabits, various castes and clans conspire for power, with the Dragaerans—long-lived, nonhuman giants—being dominant. The group denominated the Jhereg fulfill what amounts to a Mafia role. As the story opens, the Left Hand of the Jhereg—a special all-female branch known colloquially as the "Bitch Patrol"—are moving into Taltos' old stomping grounds of South Adrilankha. How does this affect Taltos? His ex-wife Cawti still runs various illegal operations in the province, and her existence is now threatened. Faster than you can say "teleport spell," Taltos is in South Adrilankha, with his two flying reptilian familiars, Loiosh and Rocza, and with his mutable possessed sword, Lady Teldra.

Now begins an operation amounting to a hybrid private-eye investigation and organized lowlife harrassment. In disguise, Taltos begins querying the locals, trying to suss out the plans of the Left Hand. From blacksmiths to bootmakers, through all strata of society, he begins to pick up pieces of information and formulate a plan to rid his town of the Left Hand—while dodging the lethal efforts of those who don't want him to succeed. But the more he learns, the more he realizes he's going to need some big help—such as from an actual Goddess of Death, and a Dzur swordsman named Telnan, a Conanesque fellow who finds overwhelming odds just his cup of Descani wine.

All frosting, but no cake

As so much in life does, Brust's new novel reminds me of a riff from The Simpsons, whose canonical corpus is now similar to the Bible or the works of Shakespeare in its ability to provide a lesson for all of life's occasions.

Homer is at a state fair at which oldies rockers Bachman-Turner Overdrive are about to play. Shouting the performers down, Homer demands that they cut straight to their big hit, "Takin' Care of Business." When they obediently launch into that, he's still unsatisfied, urging them to cut to the "workin' overtime" refrain. When they oblige, he's ecstatic, strumming his air guitar—but the pleasure is short and transitory and self-defeating. He's destroyed the tension and release of the song's structure, its whole necessary and clever apparatus, merely to pluck the nostalgic kernel from its center.

In some strange way, this is what Brust has done with this book. It's a novel composed of all the kernels of what he loves best about this kind of fantasy fiction. But there's no connective tissue, no cake beneath the frosting. It's a collection of riffs.

Brust's literary models are impeccable. E.R. Eddison (the account of Taltos' gourmet meal that frames the action echoes Eddison's hedonic delights); Fritz Leiber (the mercenary character of Taltos and his relation to his Goddess is similar to that of Grey Mouser and Fafhrd, and "Adrilankha" surely references "Lankhmar"); James Branch Cabell and Jack Vance (in the witty devil-may-care banter and world-weariness). Even George MacDonald Fraser (Taltos is a Flashman-like rogue). Brust can replicate the quintessential pleasures provided by all these authors and add his own fillips.

But while he's doing so, he's omitted all the more tedious storytelling, focusing on lapidary set pieces. Here's a couple of examples.

Taltos' whole reason for undertaking this risky assignment is his ex-wife Cawti. We never see her until the end of the book, and then only briefly, with a trumped-up emotional hook.

The Left Hand are Taltos' main opponents, a tantalizing group of sorceresses. Fascinating. Let's have Taltos confront them throughout. But no. There's no interaction till the climax.

Basically, all Taltos does is engage in banter or bluster with people who penetrate his sphere of narcissism like strangers moving into and out of a fog of self-regard. If not for mind-dialogue with his familiars, and a little bit of swordplay, and a brief visit to the astral plane, he might as well be Nero Wolfe sitting in his apartment while solving the mystery.

I understand the concepts of indirection and subtlety and reading between the lines. I don't demand thud and blunder on every page. But this tale, while mildly enjoyable for its peek into the mind of a rogue, simply falters for its exclusive focus on repetitive bits of atmosphere over plot.