Best Served Cold (novel)



"Mercy and cowardice are the same."

- Monzcarro Murcatto

Best Served Cold is a 2009 stand-alone Low Fantasy novel by Joe Abercrombie, set in the same world as his The First Law. It's set a few years after events of the trilogy, and a fair number of characters in it were supporting characters in The First Law.

As might be imagined, this is a tale of Revenge.

In Styria, a land of warring city-states based rather obviously on Renaissance Italy, mercenary captain Monzcarro Murcatto ("Monza") has come close to putting her employer, Duke Orzo, on the throne, which would realize his lifelong dream of supremacy. He's a suspicious man, though, and Monza's success has brought her renown; fearing that she may try to convert that into political power, he has her her and her brother brutally murdered and thrown off the battlements of his fortress.

Unfortunately for him, he fails to ensure that she's actually dead.

A mysterious stranger finds her broken body and nurses her back to health; suspicious in turn of his motives, Monza escapes as soon as she's able, and swears revenge on all the men present at her "murder"; seven in all, counting Orzo, his two sons, his general, Monza's treacherous second-in-command, Orzo's bodyguard, and the banker who's Orzo's financial backer.

To do this, she assembles a team of oddballs; a warrior Northman failing at becoming a better man, a numbers-obsessed ex-convict, a pompous poisoner and his gluttonous assistant, an ex-torturer, and the alcoholic old mercenary captain that Monza replaced. The task begins easily enough, but Monza soon discovers that going after the powerful has consequences — to her, to her companions, and to the fate of Styria as a whole.


 * Acquired Poison Immunity: Morveer frequently doses himself with his own poisons to keep immune to them.
 * Action Girl: Monza. Vitari.
 * Alliterative Name: Monza (Monzcarro Murcatto)
 * An Axe to Grind: Shivers.
 * Anti-Hero: Monza is a Type V; all that saves her from being a Villain Protagonist, in the beginning, is that there isn't a good side to cheer for. Sure, Duke Orzo is a villain, but Monza was his enthusiastic tool until he betrayed her, and her motives for revenge are all personal ones; that Orzo betrayed her, broke her body, and killed her beloved brother.
 * The Apprentice: Day, who starts of as Morveer's apprentice and then is his assistant.
 * Arc Words: Monza's "Mercy and cowardice are the same."
 * Best Served Cold: It's a fitting title. You can count all the named characters who don't have some sort of revenge motivation at some point on both hands.
 * Big Eater: Day.
 * Black and Gray Morality: By the end of the book you won't be surprised by who murders, exploits, or betrays who, you'll be surprised that it's taking them so long.
 * Book Ends: The book starts and ends with the words "The sunrise was the color of bad blood."
 * Brother-Sister Incest:.
 * Bullet Time: Shenkt can do this.
 * The Butcher: Monza's epithet is "The Butcher of Caprile", because of the bloody sack of that city by her army.
 * Character Development: in contrast to much of The First Law, there's a fair amount here, especially for Monza.
 * Cold-Blooded Torture: Duke Salier's torturers in Visserine, and what they do to.
 * Dual-Wielding: Friendly uses a cleaver and knife to great effect.
 * Duel to the Death: Several.
 * Earn Your Happy Ending:
 * Eye Scream:
 * Face Heel Turn:
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Styria is fundamentally Renaissance Italy, made up of warring city-states.
 * Fantastic Drug: Husk, which Monza starts using to dull the pain of her many injuries. It appears to be a loose expy of opium.
 * Good with Numbers: Friendly, who is obsessed with numbers, numerology, and counting to an OCD level.
 * Gotta Kill Em All: All seven of the men who helped "kill" her.
 * Hannibal Lecture: Ganmark gives one to Murcatto.
 * Heroes Prefer Swords: Monza has her trusty Calvez rapier, not a showy blade but of the highest quality.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: deliciously subverted with . He is He then
 * I'm a Humanitarian: Shenkt and Ishri, continuing the proud traditions of the Eaters.
 * Irony: Holy shit, where do we start? With the fact that Or how  The only constants in this story are that almost any slight will be avenged, almost every trust will be betrayed, and that you can't stop the consequences of your actions. That leads to a lot of irony of the situational, cosmic, and tragic varieties.
 * It's Personal: Duke Orzo killed Monza's beloved brother Benna (as well as almost killing and permanently maiming Monza herself.
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Monza.
 * Magic Versus Science - Morveer is a strong advocate of science, and magic is not strongly believed in Styria.
 * The Man Behind the Man: A magus. Always.
 * Master Poisoner: Morveer.
 * Meaningful Name:
 * Castor Morveer: the castor bean is the source of ricin, a lethal and hard-to-trace poison.
 * Day, Morveer's apprentice, is blonde and appears sunnily innocent.
 * Caul Shivers, like all Northern Named Men, bears a meaningful nickname. He's named 'Caul' for being born with a caul (part of the amniotic sac) on his head, but 'Shivers' is thanks to falling in a freezing cold river on his first raid and climbing out shivering with cold. He tells people sometimes that it's because his enemies shiver with terror, but this is a lie.
 * Mismatched Eyes: Yoru Sulfur.
 * No Kill Like Overkill: To make sure  is good and dead, Morveer goes ahead and poisons
 * Not Quite Dead: Monza, who Duke Orzo is convinced that he killed.
 * Perfect Poison: the opening scene for master poisoner Castor Morveer shows him showing his apprentice, Day, the most potent poison he knows, "The King of Poisons", a toxin that is both completely undetectable and impossible to build up an immunity against, and should only be used against someone who is protected against all else to keep the secret. However
 * Perky Female Minion: Day, to Morveer.
 * Poison and Cure Gambit: Used several times by Morveer and Day, sometimes played straight, but other times there was in fact no poison at all; in one of those cases, the "antidote" was actually the real poison, tricking the victim into consuming it themselves.
 * Poisoned Weapon: Morveer and Day use poisoned needles as weapons.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Monza's revenge crew.
 * The Rainman - Friendly, with his obsessive-compulsive counting.
 * Revenge: Monza's motivation.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Monza systematically works her way through the list of those who participated in her brother's murder and her attempted murder.
 * Scars Are Forever: Abercrombie loves his scarred and maimed characters, and this is no exception; Monza is stabbed, crushed and broken before being thrown off the battlements of Fontezarmo and down a mountain, and there's a limit to how much you can be repaired after that. Her right hand is ruined, her face and body scarred all over, and she is in almost constant pain.
 * Invisible to Gaydar: General Ganmark.
 * The Reveal:
 * Where It All Began:
 * Where It All Began: