Candi
Sorcerer in training
Since: Aug, 2012
Sorcerer in training
Nov 27th 2012 at 4:01:41 AM
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"In Steven Cole's novel Thieves Like Us, an inscrutable benefactor gets a quintet of teenage criminal masterminds to help him find, steal and sell long-lost artifacts. The benefactor's name? Nathaniel Coldhardt."
Is the word 'inscrutable' meant to be 'unscrupulous'? The context means that unscrupulous
would make more sense, but since I haven't read the book in question, maybe he was described as inscrutable.
ZeldaQueen
Since: Jul, 2009
Jun 14th 2013 at 8:02:37 PM
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This troper, having read the books, can say that both words would accurately describe that character. Given how he's very difficult for anyone to figure out (and easily makes it look like he's selling them all out), "inscrutable" probably was the intended word.
More or less as an aside, I was once at a book signing for David Weber's then latest Honor Harrington book, and I asked him to please refrain from naming any future characters anything like "Rob S. Pierre". He said he would, the joke was not as funny as he first thought it would be.
When I did it, one person in the audience said he did not get it. Someone said to him, "It's a play on Robespierre." He asked "Who is Robespierre?" "One of the movers and shakers of the French Revolution." "What's the French Revolution?" We then gave up on him.