I really have no idea what Max Gladstone is doing in Three Parts Dead. Cover blurbs keep mentioning John Grissom, which may be the problem, since I've never read any Grissom. Nor am I sure if one should view his Craft-workers as straightforward versions of our own lawyers (and not just any lawyers either: corporate and contract, of all the yawn-a-minute fields) or if that does an injustice to his world-building. For sure what happens in their 'judicial' hearings isn't fine argument and close interpretation of statute.

That view, however, may be what accounts for the outfit the heroine is wearing on the cover-- though in fact the heroine does wear what she, at least, calls a dark suit. I'm just wondering if that automatically equates to jacket, skirt and white blouse. (Given the magic tattoos and knife. Just sayin'.) Whatever, because Gladstone uses a show don't tell kind of world-building, it's taking me a while to read. I suppose I can see why people want a this-world-parallel shortcut to help them in the process.

Plus point: there's no physical description of the heroine for what seems pages and pages (but remember I read slowly.) I was almost hoping someone had done a 'black as default' cover for a character who could be anything. Well, not yet, but maybe some day.

Minus: Gladstone has an American verbal tick that twitches me as much as Griffin's 'was sat.' 'A couple books.' People don't say 'a pair books' or 'a set dishes', so why does 'a couple' drop the 'of' so often?