Book of the Day

From the review

Brother Diaz arrives at the Chapel of the Holy Expediency expecting a promotion. What he gets is a cell full of monsters: a knight who cannot die because he's already dead in every way that matters, a vampire baron with better manners than morals, a werewolf who treats violence like weather, and a girl who can peel reality open with a word. His job is to keep them pointed at the mission and not at each other. The joke of the book, and it is very much a joke Abercrombie is in on, is that Diaz is the most dangerous person in the room precisely because everyone assumes he's the harmless one. The premise is Suicide Squad by way of a cracked medieval Europe, but the worldbuilding is what makes it sing rather than just entertain. This isn't the First Law's grubby, mud-and-iron continent; it's a world where the old empire held the elves back with actual magic, that magic is failing, and everyone from popes to princes is scrambling to fill the vacuum with whatever monstrous tool comes to hand. Abercrombie never dumps the history on you. You get it in glances: a ruined watchtower, a saint's bones traded like currency, a princess whose blood is a political weapon before she's said a word. The rules of this world cost something every time a character uses them. Baron Rickard's charm draws blood he has to answer for later. The witch Sunny's power scares her more than it scares her enemies. That's the kind of detail that makes a fantasy setting feel load-bearing instead of decorative.