This is a delight! I forget where I even ran into this, maybe just clicking random things in the library collection. Anyway, it's a middle-grade novel about an orphan and failed monk who falls in with a con man travelling with a caravan from east to west along the Silk Road, and the large number of people hired to kill him.

It's told as a story about a storyteller, from the point of view of a teenager who finds lying about everything all the time somewhat alarming, and it's so funny. I initially had trouble warming to the narrator because he's such a stick in the mud, but as the story went on, it really got on a roll, and everyone's characters get a bit more depth. There's a tonne of great historical details and cultural notes about the Silk Road at the time, underlining it as a nexus of inter-cultural contact and technological change. I loved all the other caravan people we meet along the way, and how the budding romance plot is dealt with. (The teen, having grown up in a monastery falls madly in love with the first young woman he meets, whose response is, "You are such a cute kid!" in the most maddeningly relatable way possible.) Absolutely rec this if you're looking for a charming story of lies, friendship, adventure and quite a bit of murder.