** spoiler alert ** I admit it, I bought this one for the great cover. I hadn’t heard of the Mistborn series; in fact I hadn’t realized this was a series. Now I must find the rest of it. I don’t often give out five stars to a book and honestly, this is probably more 4.5, I felt like being generous. After all, when was the last time I read a book in less than 2 days? I got sucked right into this world and I cared about the characters within moments of reading their first lines. It’s told mostly from Wax’s point of view with a little of Marasi and Wayne’s (and once we know one of the main villains, from his point of view as well). From what I gathered from the author’s notes, these aren’t the characters from the trilogy but rather at some point distant in time.

Waxillium “Wax” Ladrium, though he belongs to a royal bloodline, is living out in the Roughs as a lawman until something goes very wrong, well two things. One has caused him doubts about his abilities and the other was the loss of his family back in Elendel, the gentrified areas of this world. He has been called back to be lord and master, especially since thousands depend on Ladrium’s house for their employment and survival. Only, his gambling uncle has left the house broke and Wax still broken inside finds himself considering a loveless marriage for financial gain.

He’s put aside his guns and mistcoat for fancy clothing and parties that bore him to death. He isn’t even all that interested in a string of mysterious robberies by a ‘phantom train,’ and the kidnappings that accompany them. Wax knows his current lifestyle isn’t for him and his soon-to-be wife is completely disapproving of his rough lawman days to the point it amuses him to play it up. Matters are not helped when his ex-partner from the Roughs, Wayne, shows up investigating, however loosely, the robberies. Wax knows Wayne is trying to lure him back into crime fighting. Both Wax and Wayne are allomancers and feruchemists, rare twin borns.

The people of this world can use metals (by taking them into their bodies in some cases) somewhat magically. Allomancers and feruchemists differ in how they use the metal (it’s detailed somewhat in the book but this is where I think it would have been helpful to have read the first series). Wax is a Coinshot, he can Push off of metal to do any number of things, include making bullets go wide and limited flight. He can also adjust the density of his body. Wayne is a Slider and Bloodmaker, able to put up speed bubbles and fast forward time and heal himself from nearly everything (which is good since Wayne gets hurt every five minutes).

At a fancy wedding, which Wayne has crashed, using his skill with disguises, Wax is with Steris, his not-quite fiancé, her father Lord Harms and her cousin, Marasi. He finds himself enjoying talking to Marasi, who unlike most young women, has not only entered university, she’s studying criminal justice. More importantly, she’s studied both he and Wayne and is fascinated by them. They’re the inspiration for penny dreadfuls ala Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. However, the robbers crash the wedding and make off with Steris, crossing the line by killing one of the party guests.

Wax can no longer sit this one out. He and Wayne, along with Marasi, start investigating the kidnappings and robberies with people trying to kill them every step of the way. This book just rockets by. The mystery is good. The action is even better. It’s hard to write fight scenes that don’t leave the reader skipping ahead to see if it’s over. The world building is fascinating and the characters are vibrant.

Wax and Wayne snark back and forth better than anyone I’ve seen in a long time and I especially appreciated Marasi. The tech level here is about the late 1800’s- early 1900’s and the view of women is about the same. In fact the Wyatt Earp analogy is probably a good one, if you transported him to say Boston (or maybe Wild Wild West would be even better) Marasi is intelligent and brave but also not superwoman. She feels real. I’m half in love with Wayne (and since he likes women that could kill him, that would work). Wax is also intelligent and very human.

The only places it loses points maybe be my own fault (well not the occasional typo) in that I would have liked to know what the heck a mistcoat is. It seemed to have special significance but it’s never expounded on. Also, the ending is very obviously a set up for the next book (yay!) which isn’t a bad thing since the storyline wrapped up in this book. No, the thing that annoyed me was Wax’s decisions about a few things. You’ll see when you read it. I’m going to be stalking the stores, waiting for the next one (not to mention hunting down the original trilogy).