Martha Wells' The Death of the Necromancer just became available self-published by the author for $2.99. This book was nominated for the Nebula in 1998.
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TDotN is the second book in a loose series starting with The Element of Fire (also $2.99 from these sites) a few generations earlier and continuing on to the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy a generation later (still full priced from HarperCollins). TDotN stands on its own just fine if you're not a completist.
I've gotta say this blurb, while accurate, makes the book sound utterly paint-by-numbers.
Quote:
Nicholas Valiarde is a passionate, embittered nobleman with an enigmatic past. Consumed by thoughts of vengeance, he is consoled only by thoughts of the beautiful, dangerous Madeline. He is also the greatest thief in all of Ile-Rien. Under cover of darkness on the streets of the gaslit city, he assumes the guise of a master criminal, stealing jewels from wealthy nobles to finance his quest for vengeance: the murder of Count Montesq. Montesq orchestrated the wrongful execution of Nicholas's beloved godfather Edouard on false charges of necromancy, the art of divination through communion with spirits of the dead, a practice long outlawed in the kingdom of Ile-Rien.
But now Nicholas's murderous mission is being interrupted by a series of eerie, unexplainable, fatal events. Someone with tremendous magical powers is opposing him, and traces of a necromantic power that hasn't been used for centuries appear. And when a spiritualist unwittingly leads Nicholas to a decrepit old house, the truly monstrous nature of his peril finally emerges.
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Two more of Wells' early works are also available at the same price; my favorite is probably The Wheel of the Infinite. An Amazon search brought up some unrelated stuff I couldn't get sorted well, but you can find them from TDotN as "also bought."
BN price-sorted Kobo price-sorted