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Before They Are Hanged (The First Law Book 2) by Joe Abercrombie
01/08/2007 . Source: Tom Lloyd-Williams 
pub: Gollancz. 441 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 9.99 (UK only). ISBN: 978-0-57507-788-1. Buy Before They Are Hanged in the USA - or Buy Before They Are Hanged in the UK  check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk
After the hugely enjoyable 'The Blade Itself', I was pretty confident that 'Before They Are Hanged' would continue in the same vein. Considering my sole complaint about the first was the lack of detail and a certain vagueness on the plot side, it ended with the various characters being sent off in different directions and about different tasks, so with luck even that would be rectified.
There are three distinct threads to the plot. Bayaz's expedition across the known world with his squabbling band of temporary allies; while Logen Ninefingers is desperately trying to forge some links between Inquisitor Glotka's assignment in the south to prevent the inevitable fall of Dagoska; and Angland in the North where Major West and Logen's former comrades, the Named Men, are trying to disrupt Bethod's invasion of the Union.
All in all, everyone's got their problems. Bayaz, First of the Magi, is crossing lawless lands with Logen - a berserker, a chatterbox navigator, his increasingly petulant assistant, a fop in the form of Jezal whose use is a mystery to everyone but Bayaz and Ferro who is more a primal force of hatred than woman. Glotka has to discover who killed his predecessor in Dagoska before he can worry about the enormous army besieging the poorly defended city he's now in charge of, while the defence against Bethod is nominally led by the corpulent and moronic Crown Prince Ladisla. All of this is met by the characters with cynicism, a very dark humour and frequently a fair dose of bitterness.
Like the first novel in the series, 'Before They Are Hanged' is a brisk and entertaining read that doesn't seem nearly as long as the word count would suggest. The pages race past and the dialogue is as snappy as one would expect. There is more plot here as the events started in Book One are now playing out and that adds to the general sense of the world, but Abercrombie is careful to keep the characters the focus. Dogman gets promoted to a leading figure, which works well as his reflections ably portray the situation and people around him, while the star of the show, Glotka, is still as much of a bastard as he's always been.
Sensibly, Jezal's selfishness and egotism doesn't survive entirely intact as the dangers of Bayaz's mission and journey reveal themselves. It would have been implausible to hold on to that in the same way as Glotka's so I was pleased to see that handled carefully, despite the (less interesting) characters of Bayaz and Ferro not receiving the same attention to detail.
All in all, 'Before They Are Hanged' is a worthy sequel to the excellent 'The Blade Itself'. There's more substance to the plot to allow the characters to develop but Abercrombie never lets go of his primary focus, the characters themselves. There are no surprises awaiting the reader, but that's hardly a problem when the first book was great! It's the fascinating figures populating these books that make them compulsive reading and I can't wait to get my hands on the last in the series.
Tom Lloyd-Williams
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