Yendi is the second book in Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series. Rather than being a direct sequel, it's a prequel, telling Vlad's story about how he met his wife during an gang war in his district. Vlad Taltos is not a very nice guy, so there's lots of murder and mayhem as well as an extremely convoluted plot. This is something I wouldn't have noticed without Jo Walton's book What Makes This Book So Great: each book in this series is named of an animal in Brust's mythology, and the Yendi is supposed to be this super devious animal capable of extremely convoluted plots.
Overall, I'm not sure the plot is all that believable, though some of what makes it unbelievable (why does Taltos have such loyal and engaged Dragaeran friends, who will risk their lives for him?) is apparently explained in later books. The book is eminently readable --- Brust's first person narratives always are. But by the end of the novel I had had enough of Taltos.
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