Joe Abercrombie is something like the James Ellroy of fantasy books: a lot of bad things happen for sometimes arbitrary reasons to people who might not deserve them just because. He's got a great attention to dialogue that puts his novels miles above the competition in this genre.

I read an advanced reading copy of this book so I'm not really 100% if my experience would be the same as if I'd gone to a store and picked a new one up in person. There was some awkward phrasing here and there and there were a few typos but that's to be expected I guess. I also made the mistake of reading this book out of order - Best Served Cold comes before it and there are some spoilers involved.

Overall it's a great read though nothing that will make you feel great about the world. It's not intended to be that kind of novel, though, and it would be worse for the attempt.