“Well, sir,” he said. “Of all the death cases to be your first, I wouldn’t much like it being this one.”
Dinios Kol has only been working as an Iudex Investigator’s assistant (apprentice-level) for four months, but even years of experience wouldn’t have prepared him for his first murder case. A high-ranking Imperial officer has been found dead in his bedchamber, torn apart by a flowering plant that apparently sprouted from his chest and grew into the size of a small tree in a matter of minutes. Maybe seconds. Robert Jackson Bennett’s otherworldly murder investigation will spread from the backwater city of Daretana to the wealthiest families of the Khanum Empire, and test all the skills of Din’s eccentric boss. And all of this is happening with an oncoming seasonal apocalypse that’s barely survivable, and which gets worse every year.
“…let’s hope the sea walls hold…”
Fantasy and science-fiction adaptations of the standard Holmes and Watson pairing are a lot of fun (I’ve reviewed at least two), and there’s plenty of variation in how the Homes stand-in presents themselves. They can be abrasive or very abrasive, socially adverse or socially indifferent, and I don’t know if there’s always drug use involved but they’re definitely not concerned about drug laws. Being brilliant is mandatory, and Bennett highlights this but also makes his famous detective slightly unhinged.
Investigator Ana Dolabra (Immunis rank) spends about 99% of the novel wearing a blindfold to avoid over-stimulation, which doesn’t cause as many problems as you might think because she can read writing and print with her fingertips and she can identify common road-building techniques just from the sounds that carriage wheels make. She’s got a terrible habit of luring people into her office and then interrogating terrified guests for hours about whatever topic she’s fixated on lately. She’s flighty and sarcastic and speaks without thinking all the time, and while she occasionally – okay, once – apologizes for saying something hurtful, it’s generally considered a terrible idea to bring her to a meeting where she might offend someone important (those of course, were some of my favorite scenes).
But she is, it has to be said, repeatedly, brilliant. Bennett brings out some of the tried-and-true Sherlockian tropes: the “no time to explain!”, the glee at having a fascinating puzzle to solve (even if said puzzle involves HORRIFYING DEATH), the offhand diagnosis of a problem she can’t believe everyone else hadn’t already noticed, and of course the incredibly satisfying “I’ve called you all here” reveal. Ana sees the ways that intricate details interlock to show how a poison works, what method someone used to be at the right place and the right time, and who had the motive based on their politics, their family, or the history of the Empire. And this is where Bennett really shines, because in a fantasy mystery all of the invented details have to make sense or the actual mystery doesn’t work, and the science, history, and politics of the Empire are all very strange.
Yet as I looked closer at it and took in its gray colorings, I realized it was not a sculpture, but a bone.
A claw. An enormous one.
“Two hundred years old, that is, ” Fayazi remarked. “Cut from one of the final leviathans to freely wander the Path. They were smaller in those days.”
I stared at the claw. It was at least three times as long as I was tall…
The Empire of Khanum is a civilization under siege. Every year during the wet season, leviathans attack the sea walls and have to be fought back by the Legion and every technological marvel that’s been created in the previous months. The leviathans aren’t just enormous – and getting bigger all the time – but they’re also weirdly infectious. The hill-sized leviathan corpses in the Plains are avoided because their chemistries do things to any nearby plants and animals. And since the leviathans have been trying to climb ashore for centuries, that’s plenty of times for the Apothetikals (scientists, although that’s really simplifying what they do) to figure out how to use those chemistries to improve every part of life. Including the people.
…just as the kirpis shroom in the corner had been altered to cool and clean air, I, as an Imperial engraver, had been altered to remember everything I experienced, always and forever.
Gigantic fungi designed to act as air purifiers and living AC units are just one of the gloriously strange elements in this fantasy-without-magic world. Rooms are lit by plants that grow translucent fruits filled with glowing blue larva. Gates and doors can be covered with living vines that will curl out of the way for anyone who’s carrying the right key, and attack anyone who isn’t. The wealthier citizens can afford the treatments that let them live longer, workers can be made bigger and stronger (if you don’t mind the necessary bone grafts to support all the extra muscle), and if you’ve got the money for the fees and training you can become a Sublime, where even brains can be improved for whatever specialty is needed. Engineering, math, languages, or engravers – like Din – who can remember everything, every tiny detail, and repeat it all back verbatim for, say, an Investigator who doesn’t like leaving her house and needs someone to act as a buffer between her and other human beings.
Our Watson stand-in is still adjusting to working with Ana Dolabra at the start of the story. He’s slowly starting to find out what the drawbacks are to a perfect memory, but I was fascinated to see all the ways Bennett comes up with for Din to use a perfect memory, to work around problems, almost like a cheat code. Unfortunately cheating is exactly what at least one of his instructors is ready to accuse him of; Din is dealing with a problem that should have made it impossible to pass the tests that he ended up passing with perfect scores. It’s a secret that Din has to deal with constantly as he’s dealing with the fact that everyone else has their own secrets, and at least one of them is willing to kill to keep them since, oh yeah, someone is out there exploding people with trees. This mystery has a very high body count, and every death is at least a little bit weird.
I’m delighted to know that this is just the first book of a series (book two came out just a few months ago), because I want a lot more of the smartmouthed investigator and her trusty assistant. As much sprawling strangeness as we got in this book, it looks like it’s only scratched the surface of this world and its history, and its toxic politics, and the leviathans which you know have more going on than just being the background for the main story.