A professional liar feels morally compelled to finally tell the truth in the form of an autobiography. The result is an incredulous tale that is full of half-truths, artistic license, and (most likely) straight up lies.
What begins as a fairly mundane accounting of the practical work of battlefield salvage quickly turns into a mystery, a frame job, then quickly spirals out of control from there. And I do mean spirals; by the end you’re witnessing the early days of a world war on par with WW1. Saevus is a likable sort of jerk in a very complicated bind, and you find yourself laughing with him during his victories and laughing at him during his defeats.
To summarize Saevus Corax Deals with the Dead in an adverb and adjective, I’d call it: tremendously fun.
Saevus himself is a clever man and he tells a compelling story – particularly the way he tells it, like a big talker at a bar with a very captive audience. There’s something to be said about an entertaining storyteller who knows we’re hanging on their every word, and Saevus takes full advantage of the relationship he builds with the reader.
I have a couple problems that prevent it from being an unqualified recommendation. The first is that the narrative voice never really changes: Saevus is cynical and sardonic no matter how mundane or exciting a situation is, and while that comes with the territory of the framing device, I wish he didn’t have such a narrow range.
Similarly, Parker has essentially one ‘trick’ that he uses in all his plot beats again and again. Saevus will think he’s safe, then whoops no he’s not, the jig is up!, but aha what he didn’t tell you is that he meant for that to happen and was actually part of some audacious plan. He then is bailed out (or just as commonly imperiled by) some random person he accidentally runs into, then it’s onto the next scheme. It’s great the first few times, but it’s a formula that becomes too rote, and it starts eating away at the shine of the book by the end.
Still, I’d easily recommend it to just about anyone interested in faster paced fantasy or hearing about a morally dubious dude trying his best.