The best of the Legends of the Riftwar books, it tells the story of what happens to Jimmy the Hand after he helps rescue Prince Arutha and Princess Anita toward the tale end of Magician Apprentice. It's a reasonable solid story, helped out by the fact that Jimmy is a personal favorite character, although some of the writing/editing is a bit sloppy. For example, in the first chapter Jimmy is described as "He was a boy of unknown age - perhaps fourteen, perhaps sixteen, no one knew..." A page or so later he is described as "His age was uncertain, perhaps thirteen years of age, perhaps fifteen..." Ignoring the discrepancy (we get it...his age is unknown), why describe it twice on consecutive pages?

I do wonder a little bit about consistency with some of the other books (since this was written retrospectively after many of Jimmy's future events were already written); nothing big, that I am aware of, but there are is a minor issue or two in this book which might contradict later events, although they're subtleties that I may be misremembering.