The Left Hand of Death by Parker DeWolf is the firs book in a new trilogy set in the Eberron world. The new trilogy is titled The Lanternlight Files the three books are; The Left Hand of Death, When Night Comes, and Death Comes Easy. As of this writing there is no word on when we can expect the other two novels to be released.

The plot of this novel is novel is rather straight forward and to the point, initially anyway. A rogue is contracted to recover a stolen item. Of course, nothing is ever that easy. Along the way there are twists and turns. All in all though, the plot is a little clichéd and recycled. The whole find an artifact, be hunted by the watch and another group, learn something about said artifact, discover villain etc is a long standing plot. Sadly, Mr. DeWolf doesn't do anything fresh and new with the plot, it just is. Attentive readers will most likely be able to guess where the story will go at different times. With that said, it's not a bad plot; it just feels like I have read it several times before.

The characters are pretty good. The main couple of characters are Whitsun who is the rogue that finds himself in all sorts of interesting predicaments. Then there is Glustred, who is an inn keeper who finds himself in the middle o what Whitsun got himself into. Both characters are fairly well written, although in the case of Glustred there were a couple times when the author seemed to `lose' him. Meaning that he wouldn't be present in the story and suddenly, there he was doing something -it just seemed a little odd. Whitsun is a decent character, yet, at times the author seemed to try and force the humor aspect too much. Don't get me wrong, there were a couple funny one-liners and funny spots, but there wee also a couple that seemed contrived and didn't flow with the scene/character at the time. I would have liked to have seen more about the villain in this book. Here is room for that, as this book only tops out at277 pages leaving plenty of room. Character development in this novel seems to take a back sea, at times, to the actual story. There are times when the characters feel as though they are being dragged by the story and not really influencing it that much. Being that this is the first book in the trilogy, maybe the next book will focus more on character development.

The pacing of this book seemed disjointed for the first half or so. It was hard to get a rhythm with the author's prose. It felt like a slow information dump to the reader. However, the second half of the book moved along at a good pace and held my interest. Whitsun, aside from the forced humor, seems like a very interesting character and one that I look forward to reading about in the future. I especially appreciated the twist at the end of the book involving Whitsun. That, I didn't see coming. Nice touch.

One of my biggest criticisms with this novel is that every time Whitsun found himself in trouble, there was always some there with the answer to his problem, or to help him get out of it. For instance the old professor in Morgrave University that had lots of information for him. It just seemed too neat and tidy how he was able to keep getting information, especially once it is revealed jus what the artifact is.

Overall, this was an average book. It is certainly not the best Eberron novel out there. I think that honor would go to the Inquisitives series, that series as a whole is fantastic. This novel is one that you can read on a lazy day when you don't want to put too much thought into anything. I would most likely recommend this novel to other Eberron fans, but beyond them, I don't see much staying power for this book. I am anxious to see we this story goes though. ( )