Mayer Alan Brenner: Spell of Intrigue

The intrigue runs very deep. No one knows whether gods or mortals are behind the power games in Oolsmouth, but the strange doings place Max, the Great Karlini, the Creeping Sword, Shaa and their comrades into a world of trouble.

Spell of Intrigue is a second book from the Dance of Gods series. A sequel to Spell of Catastrophe tells the adventures of free-lance adventurer and nostalgic technologist Maximillian the Vaguely Disreputable, physician, occasional bureaucrat, and man with a curse Zalzyn Shaa, research thaumaturge The Great Karlini, hard-boiled nom-de-plume The Creeping Sword and many others known already from the first book.