As a long-time fan of Joe Abercrombie’s work, I was excited to sink my teeth into this latest installment in his Age of Madness trilogy. Immediately following the cliffhanger of events in A Little Hatred, The Trouble with Peace is an intricately woven, stunning sequel and worthy successor to the first that has no issue matching the first book for pace or plot twists.

The shadow of characters that once dominated The First Law trilogy and appear in A Little Hatred are neatly dealt with in a way that feels natural. The world is moving on and changing, and the people with it. Where A Little Hatred and the newer characters within it wrestled with the large shadows cast by well-loved (or hated) and familiar older faces (King Jezal, Sand dan Glokta, Bayaz), The Trouble with Peace is truly where the new characters are allowed to spread their wings. The novel very firmly puts to rest the idea of the fact that, in a world where revolution and the Great Change is baring its teeth, names and who you are will soon mean very little.

In fact if anything, the higher you are to the top means the further you have to fall – a point that this book makes no small point to emphasise time and again. Just when I thought I couldn’t be surprised by a scene, Abercrombie managed to shock me all over again a few chapters later. In a way, I should have expected it. The world is a grisly, brutal one with little space for idealism or dashing heroics, a point put across often with wry and often dirty humour.

“Sometimes, to change the world, we must first burn it down.”

Each point of view character chapter is just as compelling, each with their own distinct character arc and setting. Whilst there were some characters which I had a harder time caring for (a personal preference rather than anything to do with the writing), to Abercrombie’s credit, the sprawling myriad of POV characters are tightly crafted and well written as ever. From the far reaches of the North to the Union, each one has their own path that makes you wonder how these pieces are all going to connect in the final book.

My favourite chapters lay somewhere between Vick, Rikke, and Savine’s POV. Since the events of A Little Hatred I was intrigued to see where each of these characters went, and this book didn’t disappoint. Whilst each person is so different from the other, each with their own unique trials, Savine’s arc in this book is particularly savage. The glamorous and shrewd woman’s journey taking some intriguing and heart-wrenching turns that still made sense for the character. I was also pleasantly surprised and shocked by Leo dan Brock and Orso’s arc for very different reasons. Orso as he stumbled to try and do the “right” thing as King, whilst jostling with the idea that maybe there just…isn’t one. Leo for – well – I’ll say that being the shiny poster boy for Angland isn’t all it’s cut out to be.

“Winning teaches you nothing,” said Tunny. “You see what a man really is when he loses.”

Something that I adore about Abercrombie’s work, and was particularly impressed with in this book, is how he writes action scenes. Every swing of the blade or lighting of a fuse had me on tenterhooks, masterfully done where writing about fighting might otherwise come across as dull. Not for Abercrombie, however. The latter quarter of the book is dedicated to a particularly brutally stretched out scene (one of my favourite moments), flitting from one character to another as they connect with each other as though a camera might pan in a film. It’s a gorgeously written set-piece, adrenaline fueled, bloody, emotional, and doesn’t hold back.

Once the dust and smoke and blood has settled, the aftermath of what this book leaves behind is devastating in more ways than one. The landscape and the characters in it have changed, some more dramatically and irrevocably than others, and with one final twist that had me mouthing “no WAY!” at the page, the stage for revolution that Abercrombie’s been building for two entire books is now firmly set.

And I for one cannot wait to see what happens next.

Final verdict:

A stunning successor to A Little Hatred, this new book is packed full of plot twists and witty, gripping prose. Just make sure you’re sitting down when you read it; you’ll need it for when Abercrombie sweeps the rug from under your feet.