An intriguingly dark (and realistically depressing) deconstruction of a beloved mystery trope.
Murder mystery meets grimdark political fantasy in this first of a trilogy.
Sir Konrad Vonvolt is a Justice of the Imperial Magistratum; accompanied by his taskman (a kind of bodyguard, enforcer, and investigator), Dubine Bressinger, and his law clerk, 19-year-old Helena Sedanka, he travels the Sovan Empire, solving, prosecuting, and judging criminal acts. A few decades after a dreadful period of war and conquest, Vonvolt is confident in the strength of the empire, the power of the law, and his magical abilities (necromancy and the Emperor’s Voice, which compels others to speak truth and obey his commands) to enforce his judgments. But all of those are threatened by a rising tide of religious zealotry and a call for a Crusade, both of which act as a cover for a shift in who holds the power in the Empire. As Vonvolt attempts to solve the murder of a noblewoman, the conspiracy of corruption he uncovers threatens everything he knows and loves. Meanwhile, Helena, the novel’s first-person protagonist, struggles with an internal conflict involving her loyalty to Vonvolt, who transformed her from a street orphan into an educated woman with the potential to become a Justice herself; her boredom and frustration with many aspects of her work; and her nascent desire to settle down with a young guardsman she meets during the investigation. The initial setup of the story—that of a traveling investigator/prosecutor/judge—will feel familiar to readers of Robert van Gulik’s classic Judge Dee series and Peter Tremayne’s Sister Fidelma novels (these especially, as they include a certain amount of plot tension around orthodoxy vs. heresy and newly established religion vs. paganism). But aside from the fantasy setting, this novel differs in that it focuses far more intensely on how brutal realities of war and politics can overpower a well-established legal system and, in the face of that, erode the ethical and moral structures of that system’s representatives. We have hope that Judge Dee and Fidelma of Cashel and the laws they uphold will prevail despite the obstacles against them; but although Vonvolt, Helena, and Bressinger solve the case and several of the perpetrators pay the ultimate price, our heroes, too, pay a terrible price, and what occurs seems a bit more primitive and angry than dispassionate justice; certainly, that’s what Helena thinks.
An intriguingly dark (and realistically depressing) deconstruction of a beloved mystery trope.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-36138-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
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