Best Served Cold

Published Nov. 6, 2009 by Gollancz.

ISBN:
978-0-575-08245-8
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4 stars (1 review)

War may be hell, but for Monza Murcatto, a solider of considerable fortune; it's a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular - a shade too popular for her employer's taste. Betrayed and left for dead, Murcatto's reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die.

Duke Orso imagines that he can become king by ending the civil wars that have devastated Styria, but he errs by trying to kill his overly popular general, mercenary Monza Murcatto. Recovering from her massive injuries and mourning her murdered brother, Monza vows vengeance on Orso and half a dozen of his accomplices.

"Joe Abercrombie takes the grand tradition of high fantasy literature and drags it down into the gutter, in the best possible way." --- Time "Abercrombie is both fiendishly inventive and solidly convincing, especially when sprinkling his …

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Review of 'Best Served Cold Joe Abercrombie' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This stand-alone novel set after the First Law trilogy was probably even darker than the series, and definitely filled with a lot more gore. As the title suggests it's all about vengeance. Monza Murcatto is the female captain general of the Thousand Swords, a mercenary army formerly led by Cosca, the drunken mercenary we met in the trilogy. Monza's boss, Duke Orso of Styria betrays her, kills her brother and throws her off a cliff. But she survives, and vows revenge against the 7 men involved in this betrayal.

It starts off like a bloody heist movie, as Monza and her crew of misfits plot to kill one target after the other. But the vengeance project changes all people involved, there's more people involved and it's all out war in the end.

The most likeable character is probably Cosca and he is just as murderous and selfish as everyone else …