A review by eastofthesunwestofthemoon
Thieftaker by D.B. Jackson

1.0

I almost gave this two stars, but to be honest, after a certain point in the book I hated it and just slogged through to the end. I had been liking it at probably 3 stars - the story idea was interesting and the protagonist had potential until his fourth or fifth go-around with his rival Thieftaker and her minions. Why is this guy (the protagonist) even still alive? Once he shows he's not going to be cooperative and can't be manipulated, why doesn't she just kill him and blame him and be done? And it happens over and over, to the point where I could no longer summon a suspension of disbelief. And as if that weren't enough,

Spoiler

then came the incident of the dog, which I found to be completely unnecessary in light of how often the protagonist gets out of bad situations in the most unlikely and unbelievable ways. But NOW, the author has the unmitigated gall to try to make a dog killing into an event for which I'm supposed to feel sympathy for the protagonist - oh poor man, that it came to killing your own dog! NO NO NO! I hated that, and it very likely will prevent me from ever seeking out any other tales in this series. I can never like this protagonist, not after that. Feeble.

I also did not get a strong Revolutionary War era feel from this novel - it felt more like lip service and the world felt more like a fantasy construct than a colonial town. After the incident above, I just wanted to finish it and I didn't really care about anyone in the book anymore. I cannot see why I would want to read more in this series.