This one had been sitting on the TBR pile for a very long time. I can't remember exactly why I bought it. I was looking for something a bit different and from things I heard about The Sword-Edged Blonde, it would fit the bill. Despite the Baenish cover, it is actually a Tor release.
The idea behind it is to write a hard boiled detective novel, but put in a fairly generic pre industrial fantasy world setting. Alex Bledsoe does this effectively. Eddie LaCrosse would fit right in with Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe. At times early in the book the setting comes across a bit more like an old West, rather than mid 20th century Chicago or New York.
It's once the story settles in that the problems begin. It's a fairly standard sort of detective story. Eddie is hired to clear the name of a beautiful woman who is accused of a gruesome crime that she claims to not have committed and doesn't even have a clear memory of the night it took place. All so far, so standard, and so good.
It's at this point that the story takes a rather long journey to the Forest of Coincidence. The accused woman is the wife of one of Eddie's best friends, and he's the king of a nearby country, Eddie himself is the rightful Baron LaCrosse, but he ran off years ago for reasons that will later be explained.
The story then splits into two. One is set in the current time and the other takes place 13 years before. The switching between the two timelines is rather confusing at first. There were times when I wondered if I'd missed something and had to check.
At various times The Sword-Edged Blonde hits on every detective story trope in the book, and there's nothing wrong with that. Cliches aren't necessarily a bad thing, if they're used in a different way. That doesn't happen here, it's almost as if the author had a checklist and worked his way through them. Possibly he was trying to do a parody of them, but just lacked the skill to pull it off effectively.
My biggest issue was the setting. It was only the pre industrial fantasy setting when it suited the author to be that way or if he could shoehorn the concept into it. For instance Eddie doesn't carry a gun, instead he's referred to as a 'sword jockey'. However he frequents what are called inns or taverns, but they're written as if they're 20th century diners and the customers are served by waitresses who wear name tags. That's only one example of the anachronisms that abound throughout the book.
I kept reading and I finished it. It was readable, but not particularly memorable and I have no desire to read the sequel (there apparently was one, there are even a few pages in the back of the book advertising it, but I can't remember ever actually seeing it). If anyone was in the mood to read something along these lines, but done better there's Glen Cook's Garrett P.I series and First Watch by Dale Lucas, which felt like Lethal Weapon, but in a high fantasy setting.
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