Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

Blurb:

Inquisitor Glokta, a crippled and increasingly bitter relic of the last war, former fencing champion turned torturer extraordinaire, is trapped in a twisted and broken body - not that he allows it to distract him from his daily routine of torturing smugglers.

Nobleman, dashing officer and would-be fencing champion Captain Jezal dan Luthar is living a life of ease by cheating his friends at cards. Vain, shallow, selfish and self-obsessed, the biggest blot on his horizon is having to get out of bed in the morning to train with obsessive and boring old men.

And Logen Ninefingers, an infamous warrior with a bloody past, is about to wake up in a hole in the snow with plans to settle a blood feud with Bethod, the new King of the Northmen, once and for all - ideally by running away from it. But as he's discovering, old habits die really, really hard indeed...

...especially when Bayaz gets involved. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he's about to make the lives of Glotka, Jezal and Logen a whole lot more difficult...

Review:

“Body found floating by the docks...”

Say one thing for Joe Abercrombie, say he can write one fine book. Before They Are Hanged is a tour-de-force sequel that sets the standard for powering through the “middle book slump” and miraculously improving on a mesmerizing first book. While The Blade Itself introduced us to an unforgettable cast of characters and unceremoniously dropped us into a complex world, Before They Are Hanged builds on that masterful character work and allows these characters to burrow into our subconscious while increasing the complexity and mystery of the Circle of the World. 

I loved The Blade Itself, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to me that I was going to love Before They Are Hanged. But dang it, I was surprised. I loved Before They Are Hanged SO much! I really believe that the second book in a trilogy is one of the hardest parts of the story for an author to tell. There are only a few trilogies where the author was able to make book #2 significantly better than the first book, especially when the first book already set the bar highly. Golden Son in the original Red Rising trilogy is my classic example for this. Before They Are Hanged now joins the hallowed pantheon of sequels that significantly improves upon a near flawless first book. 

“Nothing to it. You treat folk the way you’d want to be treated, and you can’t go far wrong. That’s what my father told me. Forgot that advice, for a long time, and I done things I can never make up for. Still, it doesn’t hurt to try. My experience? You get what you give, in the end.”

The First Law series is known for its impeccable character work, and Before They Are Hanged is classic Abercrombie in this regard. If I’m completely honest with myself, I had only felt so-so about Logen’s abandoned crew of Northmen in The Blade Itself. I’m not sure why, but Dogman and the Black Dow and Threetrees and the rest of the gang were fine but they just didn’t click with me in the way that I had expected that they would. I’m happy to report that all of that has changed with Before They Are Hanged. Abercrombie completely won me over with this ragtag group of rugged Named Men. I literally could not get enough of their chapters. I loved the character progression, which of course meant that I was crushed as Abercrombie earned himself his Lord Grimdark moniker with their blood. 

I think my favorite character progression though was watching West and Jezal begin maturing and hardening. West has been a stalwart character who is trying to do right, while still deeply flawed and unable to hold his inner demons in check. This character flaw manifests itself again with Prince Ladisla in a moment that left me both shocked and cheering. But he emerges from this encounter as a changed, hardened man that has become grizzled in the face of his reckless charge into the north under the fractured leadership of someone who is an embodiment of the soft entitlement of the Union. Furious. I cannot wait to continue to see his character development and where he ends as I progress through this series.

“Suffering is what gives a man strength, my boy, just as the steel most hammered turns out the hardest. Anyone can face ease and success with confidence. It is the way we face trouble and misfortune that defines us.” 

And Jezal. Jezal is that sweet airheaded idiot who keeps failing upwards but may actually be beginning to develop into a good person? You hate to love him throughout The Blade Itself and the beginning of Before They Are Hanged. He is so deeply and painfully human, with moments of redemption where I think he’s a halfway decent person and then, with his very next internal monologue, I’m reminded that he’s a privileged, whiny pink without any redeemable qualities. But then he gets his face literally bashed in and his good looks are shattered and he’s in immense pain. And he becomes legitimately grateful for Ferro and Logen. The club knocked some humility into his head while its wielder tried to put him back into the mud. It shows how skillful Abercrombie is with his character work. He was able to take me from humorously hating Jezal to being deeply invested in him and realizing there may be some complexity, depth, and maybe even some goodness buried deep down. 

“In order to act like a king, one need only treat everyone else like one.”

Glokta still has me literally laughing out loud at his dark, twisted internal monologues. Glokta and his weeping eye and spasming leg are perfect.

ALSO, that initial scene between Logen and Ferro is gold. I don’t know if I have ever read a more awkward interaction that I loved so deeply.

The story continues to expand at a rate that is astounding. There are so many questions that Before They Are Hanged asked that I NEED answered. I feel like there is just so much that I want to learn about the Circle of the World. I am so glad that there are 7 more books in this series. Honestly, this is turning into one of my favorite series with some of my favorite characters in fantasy. The First Law is true top shelf fantasy.

“It was better to do it, than to live in fear of it.”