Just finished reading the Blade Itself trilogy by Joe Abercrombie.
Starts off with a LOT of promise, you got the dark twisted characters, the mystery of whats going on, the hidden villain. All the classics are there, and a good writing style.
However, the main problem is, it's spread over three books
The first one is seemingly setting up the other two, in that its them getting ready for the journey, that's pretty much all that happens there. So if you just bought the first one you would be seriously pissed off.
The second book as them doing the journey, which is a MASSIVE disappointment. And also a side story about a city under siege (which is good)
And then the third book, which you could have just started with to be honest, because the 1st and 2nd are pretty much disregarded here and the plot lines they were have fallen pretty much to nothing and the characters are moved onto new storys.
Sure there is a bit of overlap, but the first two are essentially pointless as they set up the third one, which then disregards that set up and moves on.
The best thing about the book ar ethe two side storys of Sand Da Glotka and the party of Northmen, the rest just sort of fizzles out.
So im summary: The writing style is good, the characters are good, but the story itself lets it down.
I'm still tempted to get another of his books and give him a try, Heroes is a standalone dealing with some of the better characters it seems.