This simply is a masterpiece. I took a few days with this one because I was savouring it. Unusually for these books, this follows straight on from the events in the previous. After all that cosmic powers guff and having been stuck in the wilderness for years, Vlad decides to go for a good meal. That, is the framing device for this novel and it is absolute genius. You are as interested in Brust's descriptions of the food and the tastes as of that meal you are about the fantasy mafia shenanigans that Vlad's ex-wife draws him in to. The beats of the meal become the beats of the story. Under all that is a disquisition about heroism and it's ramifications. I swear on this re-read (and I have read this book a few times) I still didn't know how it was all going to come together. Not through forgetting but just the sheer craft of how this tale is put together. This, is one of my favourite books ever and has made as positive an impression on me reading it now as it did when I first read it. An easy and obvious recommend.