Rogues Lie – Jenny Schwartz

The best thing about “Caldryn Parliament” is that it takes a nuanced view of politics. Politics is important; it’s the way people and groups with conflicting priorities manage their disagreements. If the system is healthy, there’s a shared understanding that the competition is not zero-sum.

Vanda is exceptionally competent, and has magical powers and magical allies. But she doesn’t make the mistake of believing that she is above grubby politics. Rather, she knows that if she cannot hold her own in the give and take of the parliament, she will fail.

So far she has been succeeding - which means that some people or groups will feel threatened. This becomes apparent when she becomes the target of a rumor campaign. (As Warden, her job is to manage the magical wards that protect the parliament. Those wards have been neglected, and she means to restore them. It turns out that the stakes are higher than she initially realized.)

It turns out towards the end of the book that Vanda is more magical than she’d realized. I view this as a weakness in the book, as it detracts from the “competent person playing the game well” theme. There will be at least one more book in this series, so it is possible that the revelation will be made to carry its weight.