The World of the White Rat: The Saint of Steel by T. Kingfisher

The World of the White Rat
Clocktaur War (duology)
Swordheart

Other T. Kingfisher books

What Moves the Dead

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

A House with Good Bones

Paladin's Grace is the first in the Saint of Steel series in The World of the White Rat by T. Kingfisher. 

Stephen is a paladin of a dead god (how does an immortal being die? - the book does not even attempt to answer this question) and now he's barely surviving each day. But then he meets a perfumer named Grace and her adorable weasel pet. Soon she's accused of murder, he's trying to figure out who is leaving heads and hands of corpses all over the city, and his life of ennui becomes more complicated.

I hesitate to say anything bad about T. Kingfisher because I have historically been a huge fan. But this book was sort of boring? I found scenes occasionally charming and funny, but mostly I found it sort of drudgery to read this until the last quarter of the book. A lot of people really adore this quartet, but I didn't find this one particularly exciting. Also, it was really long.

Here's the thing, though. I'm a bit of a hypocrite. In this Lisa Kleypas book, I was pretty grumbly about how the character's main personality quirk was her love of scents, but she really never thought about scents. Kingfisher does the opposite - she makes Grace's love of scents dominate her personality in a way that made me really impatient with the character. I acknowledge that I am the common factor here and it's likely that I am the problem. 

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

“Scents are very good at calling up memories and not all memories are good ones.” (page 72)

“Competence is its own punishment..." (page 115)

There was something about poverty that was a little like war. Either you had been there or you hadn’t, and it wasn’t really possible to explain it to anyone who hadn’t. (page 144)

"...If we limited loving to just the sane, undamaged people, the next generation would have about three people in it and presumably humanity would die out shortly afterward.” (page 195)

And of course once you started thinking about it too much, it all became meaningless inside your head, like staring at a word until you no longer knew how to spell it or if it was even a real word after all. Seven drops? Was seven even a number? What the hell was a drop? Was sandalwood even real? (page 211)

Hat mentions (why hats?):

Marguerite wore an enormous plumed hat, the sort that swept into the room whether the wearer wanted to or not. Grace gaped at it. (page 32)

This hat plays a bit of a supporting role in the book. Let's follow it through the pages.

Her hair had been flattened down and rumpled by the hat and she tried helplessly to fluff it with her fingers. (page 32)

“It looks like you stuck an entire dead egret on your head.” “Two egrets,” said Marguerite. “On some of the more expensive hats, they’ve stuffed the actual bird and have them wearing little jeweled collars. It’s quite awful.” (page 33)

He and Istvhan had exhausted the weapon possibilities of everything in the room, from the banners to one of the courtier’s hats, which had an entire stuffed egret on it. (page 59)

...sweeping off her plumed hat which was...(page 64)

“It was the Squire again,” said the curvy woman in the enormous hat, emerging from the doorway. (page 73)

Marguerite’s smile was ironic under her hat. (page 129)

The short woman with the hat. (page 320)

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Paladin's Strength is the second book in the series. 

We have a different paladin this time, Istvhan (any guesses as to how to pronounce this?). He's on a mission to figure out what's going on with all these headless corpses when Clara is dropped into his lap. Clara is a nun who is searching for her sisters who have been kidnapped. Hijinks should ensue, but really it's just a boring journey until the last 10% of the book when things get Very Exciting. Should only 50 pages of a 450 page book be exciting? I'll leave that for you to decide.

As in the previous book in this quartet, I found this book occasionally charming and funny, but mostly dreary with two people thinking the same thoughts over and over again. And, I mean, I guess that's realistic? But it's also dull a lot of times. I hate this because I love T. Kingfisher. Don't I? Or maybe I don't? 

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

Clara did wish occasionally that she was the sort of woman who could love another woman as more than a sister. It would have made her life a great deal easier. (page 104)

This. 100% this. I wonder if life would be so much better without these heterosexual urges.

"...Thirty-six hours and I could still fight. Now I stay up for twenty-four and have a minor skirmish and I feel like I’ve been trampled by a bull.” 

“Getting old is a terrible thing. They say that beats the alternative, though.” 
“I’m not sure. I never used to hurt myself sleeping.” 
“Oh gods, yes. You sleep wrong and your neck goes out for a week.” (page 299)

Ha ha ha. I feel seen. I sleep with a special pillow because otherwise I can't move my neck.

“I do not fear the dead,” said Istvhan. “In my experience, the living are the ones who cause problems.” (page 348) 

Huh. I mean, corpses can cause problems, right? With disease and things?

Hat mentions: 

“I go screaming berserk at the drop of a hat." (page 120)

And they don’t have hair, so they wear hats or hoods. (page 155)

Istvhan felt a strong urge to remove his hat. (page 249)

They were wearing hoods and hats and things, and I couldn’t really make out the faces at first. (page 307)

"...none of them have hair under the hats.” (page 307)

Istvhan’s mail fit under the coarse tunic and Clara had her hair stuffed into a hat. (page 348)

Doc Mason removed his hat and held it over his heart. (page 423)

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Up next was Paladin's Hope. I have read this book before, but I reread it because I wanted to read in the "correct" order of the White Rat world. 

In this book, we meet Piper. He's a lich-doctor who can see what the dead saw in the last moments before their death. Galen, one of the paladins of the dead god, intersects with Piper when a gnole-constable 

(Okay, I have FAILED to talk about gnoles in the other reviews. I must immediately rectify this situation. Gnoles are intelligent badger-like creatures in this book. The two main gnoles in these books are Brindle, who is in charge of oxen and horses in Paladin's Strength and shows up in this book and Earstripe, who is the gnole-constable here. There is fantasy racism towards gnoles because they speak differently, live differently, and look like badgers. The gnoles are maybe my favorite part of these books.)

asks Galen and Piper to help him solve a case that no one else in law enforcement is interested in solving. Hijinks ensure, including a tortuous obstacle course and a serial killer. 

This book is my favorite of the Paladin books that I've read BY FAR. I love Galen and Piper. I love Earstripe. I loved the whole obstacle course thing. I love Piper's subtle magic. It's not a perfect book (It's. So. Long.), but I enjoyed my time here. 4/5 stars

Lines of note:

"I hear in other towns, they sometimes go whole weeks without anyone having their heads randomly chopped off,” said Piper. (location 133)

I audibly snorted at this line.

“Humans are doing the best they can,” said Earstripe, in a tone Piper usually identified with teachers of small children trying to excuse the slowest members of the class. (location 400)
The gnoles are the best and funniest. 

Eventually, he went to prayer and the bottle, the two great comforters of humanity since the discovery of gods and yeasts. (location 3351)
Maybe this is why I have such bad anxiety. I seek comfort from neither. 

Word I looked up:

castoreum (location 3203) - yellowish exudate from the castor sacs of mature beavers and platypuses. Both animals use castoreum for various purposes; beavers use it in combination with urine to scent mark their territory, while platypuses use it in reproductive communication. (I may have regretted looking it up.) 

Hat mentions:

“Okay,” he said, giving up on his hair and pulling on a hat. (location 336)

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The last book that is currently published is Paladin's Faith. 

In this book, Marguerite, who we met before in the first book in the series when we followed around her hat, is in a bit of a pickle. She's a spy and a former employer wants her dead. She hires two paladins to be her bodyguards as she embarks on a mission to find someone who can save her. One of these paladins is Shane, a handsome quiet type. 

I'd like to write adventures ensue and I guess I could, but, as with the first two books in this series, this book has an incredibly slow start. There are occasionally scenes with funny lines or some interesting action, but the real meat of this book is in the last 75 pages. Then we were left with a cliffhanger and I want to read more, but I didn't realize that there are SEVEN books planned in this series and only four have been published! Egads. I will read more because now I'm in it, right? 3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

...rest of his face had been devoured by a beard that had passed scruffy and was firmly lodged in regrettable. (location 260)

Ha! Sometimes my husband's beard gets like this and I have to politely suggest that he trim it. 

“The whole world is made of words,” said Marguerite irritably. “Treaties and contracts and secrets and laws are nothing but words, but everything runs on them. Of course they’ve got power.” (location 2001)
YES!! Words are the world. 

He didn’t fidget. He didn’t fret. He just sat there. The man was as patient as a stone. (location 3323)
This is also my husband. I do not understand how people's insides can be in turmoil and their outsides are still. 

Given a good handhold, the younger paladin could simply pull herself up. Marguerite, who could not have done a single push-up even if her breasts hadn’t rendered the issue largely moot, tried not to feel bitter envy. (location 3656)
There are so many yoga poses that I just wonder if could be different if I didn't have a giant nose. 

“If I’ve learned anything,” Shane said, “it’s that I have no idea what’s going on.” (location 4432)
Shane has adulthood figured out. 

The truth was that Shane’s martial talents did not extend to projectile weapons. On a good day, he could probably hit a barn, provided that the barn didn’t make any sudden movements. (location 4932)
This did make me laugh. 

Hat mentions: 

She cursed the fashion that had turned against hats in the last few years. She'd liked hats. (location 2658)

Not to be outdone, Davith swept off his hat and bowed so low that the plume touched the stairs. (location 3418) 

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And that's what's available for this series for now. Be prepared for more in the future. Do you like to read long extended series?