That person's hand is mentioned but not dwelt upon, and no similar hands are similarly injured.

There's a lot of plot stuff at the end of the first one, but it seems like the hand injury is very close to the end, iirc (I forget the timing? maybe?), so there would be things you could pick up and go oh, that happened, wow, okay, wow, and then move on, I think. It does a good job of reminding you "when last we saw our protags..." so it's worth a try.