Shadow’s Edge

Author: Brent Weeks
Publisher: Orbit
Classification: Dark Fantasy, Night Angel Trilogy

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Before going any further… Shadow’s Edge is the second book in Brent Weeks’s ‘Night Angel Series’, if you’ve not read the first one, The Way of the Shadows, this book review will contain spoilers.

Kyler Stern wants to walk away from the life of shadows. His best, and possibly only friend, Logan Gyre is dead as well as his master Durzo Blint. Killed by his own hands. All he wants from the Sa’kagé is the money they owe him. Momma K’s got a contract for him but for Kyler it’s time to walk away.

At first the book focusses on Kyler’s struggle to be someone else, something else. Urged on by his wife, Elene, he’s desperate to settle down and enjoy his new life. But of course this is not the life Kyler was built for, and eventually even Elene realises that she not only can’t change him, but it would be wrong to do so.

The perfect killer has no identity, but many faces

This is not the best book in the series. Others have mentioned it and I tend to agree that Kyler’s character is fairly irritating for the first part of the book with his constant recriminations about his life and moping. Also he dies a lot and keeps coming back to life and I started to feel like ‘yeah I get it, he’s immortal, can we move on now please’.

Having said all that, this is still a good book and the action really starts to kicks in in the second part of the book (so after the moping). All this leads up to a decent, edge-of-the-seat ending that will have the faint hearted dashing for the toilette.

And on that note… This book is easily as brutal as the first book and is very adult in nature. The language gets more colourful to. As I said about The Way of the Shadows, it’s not for the more gentler of readers, and that definitely goes for this version as well.

Is this a negatie review? Probably not. It sets up a lot of themes that either come good in the second, more action packed part of this book or in the next. I sometimes think it’s the job of the second book to take one for the team in this way. The first book has to wow to get the readers, the second does more scene setting to allow the third to shine in all it’s glory.

So I’m going to say good book, great series… What do you reckon?

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