I’ll add a much deserved 4th/5th/6th to Bujold, especially the Chalion novels.
As for Lies of Locke Lamora, yeah, the first is excellent, the second okay, the third . . . meh. But the first and best is much closer to what the OP specifically didn’t want - a young generation that’s just so good at what they do!
But mostly wanted to bring up that we have some of these same-ish suggestions in a related thread: