Review of Traits & Traitors

Traits & Traitors by Jane Glatt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Having escaped the pirates once, Dagrun Lund and Calder Rahmson flee their safe haven just before the Ghost Ship attacks a nearby port. They must get to Tarklee and warn the Fair Seas Treaty Alliance (FSTA) of the destruction of waterfront warehouses, docks, and shipyards, but to accomplish this they must first learn to trust each. Their superior, Spymaster Joosep Sepp, has never permitted Intelligencers to work together or to know each other’s Traits. Through trial and error Dag and Calder use their Traits – hers, Unseen, and his, Luck – to piece together the puzzle. It began with the stealing of ships and amassing weaponry. Now, Joosep is held prisoner by Tarmo Holt, the current Grand Freeholder of the FSTA and a man who is in league with the pirates. The destruction of the shipyards means no lumber to build more ships and the burnt warehouses warn of insufficient stores to feed people in the future. But how are these various threads woven together and why? Dag and Calder may be the only two Intelligencers who can thwart this wicked alliance.

Gustav Gunnarson is a novice Intelligencer, but he survived his first mission to spy on Holt. With Joosep and his assistant missing, Gustav is uncertain what to do and who to trust. It’s definitely not Vilis, another trainee, who Gustav spies with a sheaf of papers taken from Joosep’s office. Gustav doesn’t believe Vilis, and wishing he knew who to trust, he becomes an itinerant peddler walking the streets of Tarklee to garner snippets of information. If he can discover what Holt is up to – quite likely since his Trait is Charisma and people happily converse with him – he might find Joosep. While in disguise, he happens upon the pirate captain and Dag’s twin sister meeting with Holt. Gunnar doesn’t understand everything discussed, but realizes there is discord between the cohorts and that Holt pays the pirates to track down Calder’s family. They can do what they like with the captives, as long as their kidnapping brings Calder to Holt.

Traits & Traitors is the sequel to Pirates & Privateers and is storytelling at its best. Glatt drops us into the midst of the action and holds us captive until the end of the tale. Just when you catch your breath, another twist pulls you right back into the streets of Tarklee where you scurry beside Dag, Calder, and Gunnar to unearth more clues that will aid in Holt’s downfall. The characters are compelling and the story unfolds like an intricately woven tapestry in a distant land. The primary adventure is satisfactorily resolved, sometimes with gutwrenching surprises, but tantalizing subplots will entice readers back for the next installment of The Intelligencers.




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