The King of Attolia - Megan Whalen Turner (The Queen's Thief #3)

The third book of The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia continues in the third-person vein that the series switched to after the first book.  Additionally, it introduces a new protagonist, Costis; indeed, Eugenides, now the King of Attolia (and sometimes going by the "official" name of Attolis) only has a few, very brief sections that focus on him as the main character.  Instead, this has become Gen's story through Costis' eyes, as he seems to struggle to come to terms with his new role.  After all, if we can recall, Gen only took the role of king because he wanted to marry the queen, not because he actually wanted to rule.

I'm not sure if I'm a huge fan of this perspective shift.  The thing is, by now readers should know that Gen is a tricky character.  This means that, instead of seeing him as a bumbling fool for much of the book, as Costis does, I spent the duration squinting suspiciously and going, "What is he up to now...?"  And, of course, Gen is up to something.  Costis is an interesting point of view character because he resents Gen, just as much of Attolia does, but because we know Gen is up to something, he's not entirely convincing in his depiction of Gen as a bumbling fool.  Seeing Costis coming around is something of a paradigm shift, for the character rather than for the reader in this case, but honestly it just makes him, and the rest of Attolia, seem easily manipulated, rather than showing anything of Gen growing as a character.  And ultimately, this is still Gen's story--it is a series called The Queen's Thief, after all.

However, I think I did like this better than the second volume.  The relationship between Gen and Attolia/Irene is more believable here, and while the story is still very political in nature--with Gen apparently failing as a king--it was on a much smaller scale.  This is a story of intrigue and assassins rather than the movements of armies and navies, and I think it's a scale that was done much better than the preceding book.  If only the dynamic of Gen being incompetent could have been kept up, I think it would have been good...but two books of that was more than enough for readers to catch on that it's just a trick and to wise up to the ongoing deception.  With that in mind, I'm not sure how much longer this series will continue to be convincing.  The setting remains interesting, and there's clearly a rising of forces on the horizon, but without a compelling central character, it can't help but fall flat, and I'm not sure how much longer Gen can be compelling unless the dynamics are seriously switched up.

3 stars out of 5.