The fourth in the Berrybender novels and the best because things actually happen - well people die and suffer. They could've made this one book. McMurtry introduces all these characters to have some to kii but some do have impact - Tasmin loses one child to cholera and another to murder at the hand of slavers, leading to Sin Killer going on a rampage. I know he's resorting to killing of young kids to get an emotional response but it does work. He also kills off a nice Indian girl who was helping out.
The characters are on the whole paper thin - horny aristocratic women, scungy Indians, rapists, eccentric locals. Lord Berrybender remainder a joke the whole way. The second half of the book was page-turny. It helped having good vengeance plot and then the Battle of the Alamo. I liked the bit where he quickly killed characters with chloera in a page or two.
But generally this series tried my patience. He made things up as he went along and used too many of his tropes.
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