I started of pretty much adoring this book. The writing sucked me in and had little self-aware details, the characters were fun to be around and the setting seemed fascinating as well. The things I enjoyed were mostly in the small things Sam Hawke did, but after a while I noticed they weren't enough to get me through a 600p book. I didn't love the plot and I was promised a fantasy whodunnit but the mystery aspects weren't a stronger focus than in most political fantasy books and there weren't any surprising twists and revelations or even much to guess along with. While it was still an enjoyable read nothing could blow me away. However, piece by piece, it turned into a bundle of tropes I did not care for at all, to a point where I wasn't sure If I even wanted to finish the last 150 pages. Some topics were heavy handed, characters acted in frustrating ways and there wasn't good set-up, actually the last thing is true for the whole book. Apart from that it was almost like it was written by different people, turning from this charming book that seemed to integrate the topic of poison in an interesting way and had this great character in Kalina, someone who physically just can't do certain things but is still an awesome person and asset, to not doing much with its story and including clichés I thought a lot of people were sick of.