Don't let this be your introduction to Raymond Feist. If you removed the unneeded backstory it would be a fun short story. Unfortunately it's presented here as a bloated novella or very short novel. I found it unreadable. Sooo wordy.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.com. ( )

Þokkalegasta nóvella eftir Feist sem gerist í Riftwar heiminum sem hann skapaði og hefur ritað ótal sögur um, nærri 20 að ég held. Jimmy er fyrrum þjófur sem hefur öðlast traust og vinskap konungsins er sendur ásamt 2 félögum sínum til nágrannalandsins til að leita upplýsinga um glæpaforingja sem virðist vera að koma upp öflugu veldi en litið er vitað um. Góð viðbót við sagnaheiminn og fær mann til að langa aftur til að rifja upp D&D sögurnar og Forgotten Realms heiminn sem ég fylgdist svo mikið með fyrir langa löngu. ( )

It was great to return to the world of Midkemia and one of my favorite characters, Jimmy the Hand. This novella is set in the early part of the series, after the SerpentWar trilogy and is really part of the Betrayal at Krondor series. This is a short, fun story as Jimmy goes off on another mission for Prince Arutha. We also get to learn more about William and Jazhara in this book. I really enjoyed it, but it did feel a bit short and rushed. ( )

Picking up with Jimmy and hunting down the mysterious Crawler soon after the events of The Tear of God, the core of the team is back in is moving on to a fresh city to set up more of a spy network.

Like the other novels with Jimmy, it's fun but somewhat predictable. Indeed, the predictable bits are what makes this fun.

Let's see the ex-thief get into trouble, shall we? Let's see him fight or sneak his way out of it. Let's have him fight assassins, demons, mages, and all kinds of nastiness. :)

Fun? Yes, fun. Not epic, but Jimmy's stories aren't really supposed to be. ( )

Jimmy and the Crawler is the fourth and final book in the Riftwar Legacy, one of the many subseries in the larger Riftwar Cycle. It’s a short and fast read at only 144 pages.

I didn’t realize it until I sat down to write my review, but it was actually published in 2013, thirteen years after the previous book, so this is something he went back to later. The previous three books had left some open plot threads dangling, and this book (novella?) tidies them up pretty well. It fits nicely in its chronological position, at least among the books I’ve read so far.

The story focuses primarily on Jimmy, as one would guess from the title. Two other characters who have featured in this subseries are working with Jimmy on his mission and so we see a lot of them too. There was one aspect of the story that was super predictable if you’ve read the earlier-written but set-later-chronologically books. I’m referring to Jazhara’s death, since something had to happen to explain her absence in the Serpentwar Saga, and due to her relationship with William it was unlikely that she simply chose to go elsewhere. There was one thing I thought was a little too coincidental, but the story held my interest well and was mostly fun to read.

It’s a bit difficult to get a hold of this in the U.S., at least if you don't want to purchase a physical copy of the UK-published version. I’m not sure I’d call it a must-read, but it may be worth your time if you’re looking for some closure on the larger plot threads from the previous three books. If you don’t really care, then this book probably won’t hold anything special for you unless you just really want to read everything possible about Jimmy, which I could also understand! ( )