About the Book
David Gemmell Legend Award nominee 2009, British Fantasy Award nominee 2010.
Springtime in Styria. And that means war.
There have been
nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a
vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them
they have bled the land white. While armies march, heads roll and
cities burn, behind the scenes bankers, priests and older, darker
powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king.
War may be
hell but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and
famous mercenary in Duke Orso's employ, it's a damn good way of making
money too. Her victories have made her popular – a shade too popular
for her employers' taste. Betrayed, thrown down a mountain and left for
dead, Murcatto's reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for
vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die.
Her allies
include Styria's least reliable drunkard, Styria's most treacherous
poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a barbarian who just
wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the
nation. And that's all before the most dangerous man in the world is
dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started...
Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.
“Joe Abercrombie’s Best Served Cold is a bloody and relentless epic of vengeance and obsession in the grand tradition, a kind of splatterpunk sword 'n sorcery Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas by way of Moorcock. His cast features tyrants and torturers, a pair of poisoners, a serial killer, a treacherous drunk, a red-handed warrior and a blood-soaked mercenary captain. And those are the good guys… The battles are vivid and visceral, the action brutal, the pace headlong, and Abercrombie piles the betrayals, reversals, and plot twists one atop another to keep us guessing how it will all come out. This is his best book yet.” – George R.R. Martin
