This is the second book in The Collector of Tales series. It is set in the classical world of the Xandrian City States, just about as far away from the Northern Lands in temperature and temperament as you can get. Whereas in Trellsheim, The Collector viewed the inhabitants as brutish and crude, in this world it is he who is considered the Barbarian. Following a period of recuperation at home in the Midlands, The Collector is thrown out once more by his wife and heads off to the south in search of warmth and the tale of the Outlaw Broken Knee. We don't hear a lot about this particular Xandrian folk tale in the book as the Collector is soon embroiled in the convoluted and complicated activities that seem to follow him about. In this book we meet up once more with Welcome, the enigmatic spice trader who, it now appears, is a lot more than he seems. He is also about to get married and he invites The Collector to his wedding which as fate would have it, is to be held on the island of Bretha Yenglesh, the largest of the islands of the archipelago. He also appoints a man to act as a minder to him to ensure that he is able to get to the wedding unharmed and in one piece. The Xandrian Quarters themselves are a lawless archipelago of small islands lying off the south eastern corner of the mainland. Following a chance meeting in the heat of the City of Xandria, The Collector finds himself on the open sea headed for the island of Bretha Yenglesh to deliver a document. He has to find a man known as Malice although to his friends, if he had any he would be called Billy.Malice was once a surgeon and a scholar but as a result of an inherited condition he has to abandon this calling. He has become a mercenary soldier and is a berserker - in the medieval sense of the word. He carries about him an aura of latent danger. Through him The Collector is drawn into a world of increasing threat and violence as the tales that he gathers develop a more sinister twist. The Collector's experiences offer a fly-on-the-wall view of some of the nuances, and in certain cases the extremities, of the human condition as he wanders across a landscape of increasing absurdity and complexity. What's the plot?Although this novel follows on from The Collector of Tales, it has been written to stand alone. Following a chance encounter ( more accurately a chance collision) with a strange and unsanitary man in the Xandrian capital, The Collector is tasked with delivering a book to someone in the Xandrian Quarters, an archipelago of lawless islands off the mainland. He has little to go on other than that he is referred to as Malice, although to his friends ( if he had any) he is called Billy. He is paid more money than he could earn in a good year to carry out this task. The book itself is unimportant but Malice is something else.