This looked like the sort of book I'd like, so I picked it up in paperback while on a business trip. I really liked parts of it - the characters and settings are good, and I liked the romance between the principal characters. I particularly liked the protagonist's admission of his own less than honorable traits, which was somewhat reminiscient of Fraser's Flashman. But I could not follow the minor characters or plots for much of the book, and the scrapes that he gets out of, as well as some of the other developments, are just too improbable to be likely, and that undermined the otherwise very high level of verisimilitude.
The best test I have for books like this is whether I'd buy the sequel (and yes, there si one) and in what form, and whether I'd be looking for a hardback version. I would buy the sequel, but only in paperback, and I'm content for this book to stay in paperback as well.