Brotherly Bonds Face the Ultimate Test in Master Assassins

The Brothers Hinjuman are soldiers. They have killed, to be sure, in the service of the Prophet, and in what they consider the cause of their countrymen. And in the course of the first novel in The Fire Sacrements series, they will kill again—this time striking blows at the heart of the holy family itself. But assassins they are not. The bloodshed they run into is accidental; their apparent violence, a mistake. But the truth matters less than the consequences of their handiwork, and Kandri and Mektu soon find themselves on the run from the elite forces and superhuman weaponry of the Prophet—and, most importantly, from their own pasts.
As on so many occasions, these brothers, seemingly insignificant in the grand scheme of world events, end up the key figures in the battle for control of the continent, Urrath. Their journey through the treacheries of the desert (charmingly dubbed “The Land That Eats Men”), hoping to escape the wrath of their grieving leader, displays a strain of exasperated humor that seems to pair like bread and butter with studies of family dynamics.
And family dynamics are what gives Master Assassins its heart. Redick’s worldbuilding—his depiction of the tumult in Urrath—shows the same imagination and depth as the sprawling Chathrand Voyage quartet (saying something, considering it boasted living statues, sentient rats, supernaturally treacherous seas, and yet more weirdness).  But while the taut, deftly-plotted story in this series-starter covers much literal and figurative ground, there is a profound sense of claustrophobia dogging the brothers’ footsteps.
That suffocation will be familiar to any who knows the strains and the fractures that so often plague a family. Kandri and Mektu are as much fighting themselves and their personal history as they are the forces of the Prophet.

For starters, the pair is a study in contrasts. Kandri is quiet, eager to blend in with the crowd—the sensible one. Mektu is erratic and emotional, prone to cause ripples wherever he’s dropped. As cautious as Kandri is, Mektu is impulsive. This friction has a tendency to cause sparks, and it is only exacerbated by their new life on the lam.
What they share is a father, whose secrets haunt their flight throughout this novel and promise even more questions and revelations as the series progresses. His shadow looms over the brothers, as does that of a lost love. The narrow path to survival they find themselves on is as crowded by their own ghosts as it is the very real ghouls and hellcats they soon encounter.
Redick wrings this emotional baggage for all its worth, dribbling out the secrets of the past with expert care. His characters—Mektu and Kandri, and their motley crew of traveling companions—are endearing and endlessly empathetic, and their palpable realness carries the drama and suspense without collapsing under the weight of building a world and setting up a few more books’ worth of storyline.
Then, of course, there is also the gallows humor, sprinkled high and low amid the barren landscape of the Stolen Sea and the Land That Eats Men. Because if you can’t appreciate the laughable irony of being lauded as heroes—saviors of a cause—by a desert warlord, what can you appreciate?
Master Assassins is available March 6.