The opening novel of the Tawny Man Trilogy returns to Fitz fifteen years after the conclusion of Assassin's Quest, finding him living in deliberate isolation with his wolf Nighteyes and the boy Hap he has taken in. The reunion with the Fool - now presenting as a woman called Amber, recently arrived from Bingtown - is the emotional centre of the novel, and Hobb handles the weight of their shared history with extraordinary delicacy. Fitz is drawn reluctantly back into the world of Buckkeep and its politics when Prince Dutiful goes missing, and the novel establishes the Tawny Man's central concern: what remains of a person who has already given everything once. Quieter in its opening than the Farseer books, it builds to a conclusion of considerable emotional force.