The Flightless Falcon

With her latest novel, popular heroic fantasy author Reichert begins a brand new fantasy series. After a terrible mining accident which makes being underground unbearable for him, our hero Tamison seeks other work to feed his family. He has no luck breaking into the powerful guild brotherhood which control commerce in Lathary. Caught stealing food, he spends the next two years in prison, only to discover after his release that his family disappeared not long after his sentencing. Desperate to find them, he teams up with Dallan, a Lathary city guardsman, a mysterious thief named Con, and Rifkah, a foreign fortuneteller. They embark on a dangerous journey to rival city Callos, where Dallan says his family and Tamison's were taken as slaves to serve evil Lord Mannkorus. As they get closer to Callos, however, mutual suspicion pushes the group apart even as their trials draw them together.

In the end they uncover a plot far nastier than any of them expected, one rife with double-dealing and deception, which only their mutual cooperation can defeat. The novel's smaller scale and less-than-obviously heroic characters mark a pleasant change of pace from Reichert's more traditional epic fantasy works. Her fans will enjoy the adventure and intrigue of this fast-paced, if slightly predictable, start to a new series. --Charlene Brusso